llih  INSIDL  .S'lORY  OF  'IHL  PLACJ:  CONFKRLNCE 

fricTids  explained  this  ho'.xWwj  as  follows.  His  ardent 
nationali:-:t  sxrntiments  placed  him  in  antagonii-:m  to  every 
movement  that  ran  cotmter  to  the  progress  of  his  country 
on  nationalist  lines.  For  he  is  above  all  things  a  Pole 
and  a  x-'atriot.  And  as  the  Hebrew  jyjx^tilation  of  Poland, 
disbelieving  in  the  resurrection  of  that  nation,  had  long 
since  struck  up  a  cordial  understanding  v/ith  the  states 
that  held  it  in  fxjndage,  the  gifted  author  of  a  book  on  the 
l'ouwlation:>  of  Nationalum,  which  went  through  four 
editions,  v/as  regarded  by  the  Hebrew  elements  of  the 
I^jf/ulation  as  an  irreconcilable  enemy.  In  truth,  he 
was  only  the  leader  of  a  movement  that  was  a  historical 
necessity.  One  of  the  theses  of  the  v/ork  v/as  the  neces- 
sity of  cultivating  an  anti-German  spirit  in  Poland  as 
the  only  antidote  against  the  Teuton  virus  introduced  from 
Berlin  through  economic  and  other  channels.  And  as  the 
Polish  Jews,  v/hose  idiom  is  a  corruj^ted  German  dialect 
and  whose  leanings  are  often  Teutonic,  felt  that  the 
attack  upon  the  v/hole  v/as  an  attack  on  the  part,  they 
anathematized  the  author  and  held  hirn  up  to  universal 
obloquy.  And  there  has  been  no  reconciliation  ever 
since.  In  the  United  States,  v/here  the  Jewish  community 
is  numeroiis  and  influential,  M.  Dmowski  found  sfy^kes 
in  his  wheel  at  every  stage  of  his  journey,  and  in  Paris, 
too,  he  had  to  full-front  a  trcimendous  opposition,  open 
and  covert.  Whaty^ver  unbiased-  peoj^le  may  think  of 
this  explanation  and  of  his  hostility  to  the  Germans  and 
their  agents,  Roman  Drnowski  deservedly  enjoys  the 
reputation  of  a  straightforv/ard  and  loyal  fighter  for  his 
country's  cause,  a  man  who  scorns  underhand  machina- 
tions and  proclaims  aloud — fjerhaps  too  frankly — the 
X^rindples  for  which  he  is  fighting.  Polish  Jews  who 
appeared  in  Paris,  some  of  them  his  bitterest  antagonists, 
recognized  the  chivalrous  way  in  v/hich  he  conducts  his 
electoral  and  other  campaigns.     Among  the  delegates  his 

80 


THE   DELEGATES 

practical  acquaintanceship  with  East  European  jx^litics 
entitled  him  to  high  rank.  For  he  knows  the  world 
better  than  any  living  statesman,  having  traveled  over 
Eurofx?,  Asia,  and  America.  He  undertook  and  success- 
fully accomplished  a  delicate  mission  in  the  Far  East 
in  the  year  1905,  rendering  valuable  services  to  his 
country-  and  to  the  cause  of  civilization, 

"M.  Dmowski's  activity,"  his  friends  further  assert, 
"is  impassioned  and  unselfish.  The  ambition  that  m- 
spires  and  nerves  him  is  not  of  the  personal  sort,  nor  Is 
his  patriotism  a  ladder  leading  to  place  and  power. 
Polish  patriotism  occupies  a  category  apart  from  that  of 
other  European  peoples,  and  M.  Dmowski  has  typified 
it  with  rare  fidelity  and  completeness.  If  Wilsonianism 
had  been  realized,  Polish  nationalism  might  have  become 
an  anachronism.  To-day  it  is  a  large  factor  in  European 
politics  and  is  little  undcTstood  in  the  West.  M.  Dmow- 
ski lives  for  his  country.  Her  interests  absorb  his 
energies.  He  would  probably  agree  with  the  historian 
Paolo  Sarpi,  who  said,  'Let  us  be  Venetians  first  and 
Christians  aftc*r.'  Of  the  tv/o  widely  divergent  currents 
into  which  the  main  stream  of  political  thought  and 
sentiment  throughout  the  world  is  fast  dividing  itself, 
M.  Dmowski  moves  with  the  national  away  from  the 
international  championed  by  Jvlr.  Wilson.  The  fre- 
quency with  which  the  leading  spirits  of  Bolshevism  turn 
out  to  be  Jews — to  the  dismay  and  disgust  of  the  bulk  of 
their  own  community — and  the  ingenuity  they  displayed 
in  spreading  their  corrosive  tenets  in  Poland  may  not 
have  been  without  effect  upon  the  energy  of  M.  Dmow- 
ski's attitude  toward  the  demand  of  the  Polish  Jews  to  he 
placed  in  the  privileged  position  of  wards  of  the  League 
of  Nations.  But  the  principle  of  the  protection  of  minority 
— Jewish  or  Gentile — is  assailable  on  grounds  which  have 
nothing  to  do  with  race  or  religion."     Some  of  the  most 

81 


Columbia  ©nitjem'tp 
intI)rCitpoflfttJgcrk 


LIBRARY 


GIVEN  BY 


Robert  V^^alker 


The  Inside  Story  of 

The  Peace  Conference 


ROBERTS  WALKER 
'iSDALE,  NEW  YORK 


rk| 


The  Inside  Story  of 

The  Peace  Conference 

Dr,  E.  X  Dillon 


/l^^ 


HARPER   &  BROTHERS   PUBLISHERS 
NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 


/cr-\/s    -V 


Tub  Inside  Story  of  the  Peace  Conference 


Copyright  1920,  by  Harper  &  Brothers 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 

Published  February,  1920 

0-0 


9^0  .  31 

3  SSI 


To 

C.  W.  BARRON 

in  memory  of  interesting  conversations 

on  historic  occasions 

These  pages  are  inscribed 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.                     g  PACE 

FORWORD ix 

I.  The  city  of  the  Conference i 

II.  Signs  of  the  times        45 

III.  The  delegates 58 

IV.  Censorship  and  secrecy       117 

V.  Aims  and  methods 136 

VI.  The  lesser  states 184 

VII.  Poland's  outlook  in  the  future 264 

VIII.  Italy 272 

IX.  Japan 322 

X.  Attitude  toward  Russia 34.^ 

XI.  Bolshevism       376 

XII.  How  Bolshevism  was  fostered 399 

XIII.  Sidelights  on  the  Treaty 407 

XIV.  The  Treaty  with  Germany 455 

XV.  The  Treaty  with  Bulgaria 464 

XVI.  The  Covenant  and  minorities          469 


FOREWORD 

It  is  almost  superfluous  to  say  that  this  book  does 
not  claim  to  be  a  history,  however  summary,  of  the  Peace 
Conference,  seeing  that  such  a  work  was  made  sheer 
impossible  now  and  forever  by  the  chief  delegates  them- 
selves when  they  decided  to  dispense  with  records  of  their 
conversations  and  debates.  It  is  only  a  sketch — a  sketch 
of  the  problems  which  the  war  created  or  rendered  press- 
ing—  of  the  conditions  under  which  they  cropped  up; 
of  the  simplicist  ways  in  which  they  were  conceived  by 
the  distinguished  politicians  who  volunteered  to  solve 
them;  of  the  delegates'  natural  limitations  and  elec- 
tioneering commitments  and  of  the  secret  influences  by 
which  they  were  swayed;  of  the  peoples'  needs  and 
expectations;  of  the  unwonted  procedure  adopted  by 
the  Conference  and  of  the  fateful  consequences  of  its 
decisions  to  the  world. 

In  dealing  with  all  those  matters  I  aimed  at  impartial- 
ity, which  is  an  unattainable  ideal,  but  I  trust  that 
sincerity  and  detachment  have  brought  me  reasonably 
close  to  it.  Having  no  pet  theories  of  my  own  to  champion, 
my  principal  standard  of  judgment  is  derived  from  the 
law  of  causality  and  the  rules  of  historical  criticism. 

The  fatal  tactical  mistake  chargeable  to  the  Conference 
lay  in  its  making  the  charter  of  the  League  of  Nations 
and  the  treaty  of  peace  with  the  Central  Powers  inter- 
dependent. For  the  maxims  that  underlie  the  former  are 
irreconcilable  with  those  that  should  determine  the  latter, 
and  the  efforts  to  combine  them  must,  among  other  un- 


FOREWORD 

toward  results,  create  a  sharp  opposition  between  the  vital 
interests  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  and  the 
apparent  or  transient  interests  of  their  associates.  The 
outcome  of  this  unnatural  union  will  be  to  damage  the 
cause  of  stable  peace  which  it  was  devised  to  further. 

But  the  surest  touchstone  by  which  to  test  the  capacity 
and  the  achievements  of  the  world-legislators  is  their 
attitude  toward  Russia  in  the  political  domain  and  toward 
the  labor  problem  in  the  economic  sphere.  And  in  neither 
case  does  their  action  or  inaction  appear  to  have  been 
the  outcome  of  statesman-like  ideas,  or,  indeed,  of  any 
higher  consideration  than  that  of  evading  the  central 
issue  and  transmitting  the  problem  to  the  League  of 
Nations.     The  results  are  manifest  to  all. 

The  continuity  of  human  progress  depends  at  bottom 
upon  labor,  and  it  is  becoming  more  and  more  doubtful 
whether  the  civilized  races  of  mankind  can  be  reckoned 
on  to  supply  it  for  long  on  conditions  akin  to  those  which 
have  in  various  forms  prevailed  ever  since  the  institutions 
of  ancient  times  and  which  alone  render  the  present  social 
structure  viable.  If  this  forecast  should  prove  correct, 
the  only  alternative  to  a  break  disastrous  in  the  con- 
tinuity of  civilization  is  the  frank  recognition  of  the 
principle  that  certain  inferior  races  are  destined  to  serve 
the  cause  of  mankind  in  those  capacities  for  which  alone 
they  are  qualified  and  to  readjust  social  institutionc  to 
this  axiom. 

In  the  meanwhile  the  Conference  which  ignored  this 
problem  of  problems  has  transformed  Europe  into  a 
seething  mass  of  mutually  hostile  states  powerless  to 
face  the  economic  competition  of  their  overseas  rivals 
and  has  set  the  very  elements  of  society  in  flux. 

E.  J.  Dillon. 


The  Inside  Story  of 

The  Peace  Conference 


THE   INSIDE  STORY   OF 
THE   PEACE  CONFERENCE 


THE    CITY   OF   THE    CONFERENCE 

THE  choice  of  Paris  for  the  historic  Peace  Conference 
was  an  afterthought.  The  Anglo-Saxon  govern- 
ments first  favored  a  neutral  country  as  the  most  appro- 
priate meeting-ground  for  the  world's  peace-makers. 
Holland  was  mentioned  only  to  be  eliminated  without 
discussion,  so  obvious  and  decisive  were  the  objections. 
French  Switzerland  came  next  in  order,  was  actually 
fixed  upon,  and  for  a  time  held  the  field.  Lausanne  was 
the  city  first  suggested  and  nearly  chosen.  There  was  a 
good  deal  to  be  said  for  it  on  its  own  merits,  and  in  its 
suburb,  Ouchy,  the  treaty  had  been  drawn  up  which 
terminated  the  war  between  Italy  and  Turkey.  But 
misgivings  were  expressed  as  to  its  capacity  to  receive 
and  entertain  the  formidable  peace  armies  without  whose 
co-operation  the  machinery  for  stopping  all  wars  could 
not  well  be  fabricated.  At  last  Geneva  was  fixed 
upon,  and  so  certain  were  influential  delegates  of  the 
ratification  of  their  choice  by  all  the  Allies,  that  I  felt 
justified  in  telegraphing  to  Geneva  to  have  a  house  hired 
for  six  months  in  that  picturesque  city. 


rill':   INSIDE  STORY  OK    llll':   PEACE  CONFERENCE 

But  [\\c  inlliioutial  delegates  liad  reckoned  without  the 
Freneh,  who  in  these  matters  were  far  and  away  the  most 
influential.  Was  it  not  in  the  Ilall  of  Mirrors  at  Versailles, 
they  asketl,  that  Teuton  militarism  had  received  its  most 
powerful  impulse?  Ami  did  not  poetic  justice,  whicli 
was  ne\er  so  needed  as  in  these  evil  days,  ordain  that  the 
chartered  destri^>'er  who  had  first  seen  the  light  of  day 
in  that  hall  should  also  be  destroyed  there?  Was  this 
not  in  accordance  with  the  eternal  fitness  of  things? 
\Vliereupon  the  matter-of-fact  Anglo-Saxon  mind,  unable 
to  withstand  the  force  of  this  argument  and  accustomed 
to  give  way  on  secondary  matters,  assented,  and  Paris 
was  accordingly  fixed  upon.  .  .  . 

"Paris  herself  again,"  tourists  remarked,  who  had  not 
been  there  since  the  fateful  month  when  hostilities  began 
— meaning  that  something  of  the  wealth  and  luxury  of 
bygone  days  was  venturing  to  display  itself  anew  as  an 
afterglow  of  the  epoch  whose  sun  was  setting  behind 
banks  of  thunder-clouds.  And  there  was  a  grain  of  truth 
in  the  remark.  The  Ville  Lumi^re  was  crowded  as  it 
never  had  been  before.  But  it  was  mostly  strangers 
who  were  within  her  gates.  In  the  throng  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  warriors  and  cosmopolitan  peace-lovers  following 
the  trailing  slvirts  of  destiny,  one  might  with  an  ellort 
discover  a  Parisian  now  and  again.  But  they  were  few 
and  far  between. 

They  and  their  principal  European  guests  made  some 
feeble  attempts  to  vie  with  the  Vienna  of  i8 14-15  in 
elegance  and  taste  if  not  in  pomp  and  splendor.  But  the 
general  effect  was  marred  by  the  element  of  the  nouvcaux- 
ricltcs  and  noitvcaiix-puuvrcs  which  was  prominent,  if  not 
predominant.  A  few  of  the  great  and  would-be  great 
ladies  outbade  one  another  in  the  effort  to  renew  the  luxury 
and  revive  the  grace  of  the  past.  But  the  atmosphere  was 
numbing,  their  exertions  half-hearted,  and  the  smile  of 

2 


THK  CITY  OF  HIE  CONFERENCE 

youth  and  beauty  was  cold  like  the  sheen  of  winter  ice. 
'J'he  shadow  of  death  hun^'  over  the  institutions  and 
survivals  of  the  various  civiHzations  and  epochs  which 
were  being  dissolved  in  the  common  melting-i)Ot,  and 
even  the  man  in  the  street  was  conscious  of  its  chilling 
influence.  Life  in  the  capital  grew  agitated,  fitful, 
superficial,  unsatisfying.  Its  gaiety  was  forced — some- 
thing between  a  challenge  to  the  destroyer  and  a  sad 
farewell  to  the  past  and  present.  Men  were  instinctively 
aware  that  the  morrow  was  fraught  with  bitter  surprises, 
and  they  deliberately  adopted  the  maxim,  "Let  us  eat 
and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die."  None  of  these  people 
l)ore  on  their  physiognomies  the  dignified  impress  of  the 
olden  time,  barring  a  few  aristocratic  figures  from  the 
Faubourg  St. -Germain,  who  looked  as  though  they  had 
only  to  don  the  perul<:es  and  the  distinctive  garb  of  the 
eighteenth  century  to  sit  down  to  table  with  Voltaire 
and  the  Marquise  cki  Chatelct.  Here  and  there,  indeed, 
a  coiffure,  a  toilet,  the  bearing,  the  gait,  or  the  peculiar 
grace  with  which  a  robe  was  worn  reminded  one  that  this 
or  that  fair  lady  came  of  a  family  whose  life-story  in  the 
days  of  yore  was  one  of  the  tributaries  to  the  broad  stream 
of  European  history.  But  on  closer  acquaintanceship, 
especially  at  conversational  tournaments,  one  discovered 
that  Nature,  constant  in  her  methods,  distributes  more 
gifts  of  beauty  than  of  intellect. 

Festive  banquets,  sinful  suppers,  long-spun-out  lunches 
were  as  frequent  and  at  times  as  Lucullan  as  in  the  days 
of  the  Regency.  The  outer,  coarser  attributes  of  luxury 
abounded  in  palatial  restaurants,  hotels,  and  private  man- 
sions; but  the  refinement,  the  grace,  the  brilliant  con- 
versation even  of  the  Paris  of  the  Third  Empire  were 
seen  to  be  subtle  branches  of  a  lost  art.  The  people  of 
the  armistice  were  weary  and  apprehensive — weary  of  the 
war,  weary  of  politics,  weary  of  the  worn-out  framework 
2  3 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

of  existence,  and  filled  with  a  vague,  nameless  apprehension 
of  the  unknown.  They  feared  that  in  the  chaotic  slough 
into  which  they  had  fallen  they  had  not  yet  touched 
bottom.  None  the  less,  with  the  exception  of  fervent 
Catholics  and  a  number  of  earnest  sectarians,  there  were 
few"  genuine  seekers  after  anything  essentially  better. 

Not  only  did  the  general  atmosphere  of  Paris  undergo 
radical  changes,  together  with  its  population,  but  the 
thoroughfares,  many  of  them,  officially  changed  their 
names  since  the  outbreak  of  the  w^ar. 

The  Paris  of  the  Conference  ceased  to  be  the  capital 
of  France.  It  became  a  vast  cosmopolitan  caravanserai 
teeming  with  unw^onted  aspects  of  life  and  turmoil, 
filled  with  curious  samples  of  the  races,  tribes,  and  tongues 
of  four  continents  who  came  to  watch  and  wait  for  the 
mysterious  to-morrow.  The  intensity  of  life  there  was 
sheer  oppressive ;  to  the  tumultuous  striving  of  the  living 
were  added  the  silent  influences  of  the  dead.  For  it 
was  also  a  trysting-place  for  the  ghosts  of  sovereignties 
and  states,  militarisms  and  racial  ambitions,  which  were 
permitted  to  wander  at  large  until  their  brief  twilight 
should  be  swallowed  up  in  night.  The  dignified  Turk 
passionately  pleaded  for  Constantinople,  and  cast  an 
imploring  look  on  the  lone  Armenian  whose  relatives  he 
had  massacred,  and  who  was  then  waiting  for  political 
resurrection.  Persian  delegates  wandered  about  like  souls 
in  pain,  waiting  to  be  admitted  through  the  portals  of  the 
Conference  Paradise.  Beggared  Croesus  passed  famish- 
ing Lucullus  in  the  street,  and  once  mighty  viziers  shiv- 
ered under  threadbare  garments  in  the  biting  frost  as 
they  hurried  over  the  crisp  February  snow.  Waning 
and  w^axing  Powers,  vacant  thrones,  decaying  domina- 
tions had,  each  of  them,  their  accusers,  special  pleaders, 
and  judges,  in  this  multitudinous  world-center  on  which 
tragedy,  romance,  and  comedy  rained  down  potent  spells. 

4 


THE  CITY  OF  THE  CONFERENCE 

For  the  Conference  city  was  also  the  clearing-house  of 
the  Fates,  where  the  accounts  of  a  whole  epoch,  the  deeds 
and  misdeeds  of  an  exhausted  civilization,  were  to  be 
balanced  and  squared. 

Here  strange  yet  familiar  figures,  survivals  from  the 
past,  started  up  at  ever^"  hand's  turn  and  greeted  one 
with  smiles  or  sighs.  Men  on  whom  I  last  set  eyes  when 
we  were  boys  at  school,  playing  football  together  in  the 
field  or  preparing  lessons  in  the  school-room,  would  stop 
me  in  the  street  on  their  way  to  represent  nations  or 
peoples  whose  lives  were  out  of  chime,  or  to  inaugurate 
the  existence  of  new  republics.  One  face  I  shall  never 
forget.  It  was  that  of  the  self-made  temporary  dictator 
of  a  little  country  whose  importance  was  dwindling  to  the 
dimensions  of  a  footnote  in  the  history  of  the  century.  I 
had  been  acquainted  with  him  personally  in  the  halcyon 
day  of  his  transient  glory.  Like  his  picturesque  land, 
he  won  the  immortality  of  a  day,  was  courted  and  sub- 
sidized by  competing  states  in  turn,  and  then  suddenly 
cast  aside  like  a  sucked  orange.  Then  he  sank  into  the 
depths  of  squalor.  He  was  eloquent,  resourceful,  imagi- 
native, and  brimful  of  the  poetry  of  untruth.  One  day 
through  the  asphalt  streets  of  Paris  he  shuffled  along  in 
the  procession  of  the  doomed,  with  wan  face  and  sunken 
eyes,  wearing  a  tragically  mean  garb.  And  soon  after  I 
learned  that  he  had  vanished  unwept  into  eternal  oblivion. 

An  Arabian  Nights  touch  was  imparted  to  the  dissolv- 
ing panorama  by  strange  visitants  from  Tartary  and 
Kurdistan,  Korea  and  Aderbeijan,  Armenia,  Persia,  and 
the  Hedjaz — men  with  patriarchal  beards  and  scimitar- 
shaped  noses,  and  others  from  desert  and  oasis,  from 
Samarkand  and  Bokhara.  Turbans  and  fezzes,  sugar- 
loaf  hats  and  headgear  resembling  episcopal  miters,  old 
military  uniforms  devised  for  the  embryonic  armies  of 
new  states  on  the  eve  of  perpetual  peace,  snowy-white 

5 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

bumooses,  flowing  mantles,  and  graceful  garments  like 
the  Roman  toga,  contributed  to  create  an  atmosphere  of 
dreamy  unreality  in  the  city  where  the  grimmest  of 
realities  were  being  faced  and  coped  with. 

Then  came  the  men  of  wealth,  of  intellect,  of  industrial 
enterprise,  and  the  seed-bearers  of  the  ethical  new  order- 
ing, members  of  economic  committees  from  the  United 
States,  Britain,  Italy,  Poland,  Russia,  India,  and  Japan, 
representatives  of  naphtha  industries  and  far-off  coal 
mines,  pilgrims,  fanatics,  and  charlatans  from  all  climes, 
priests  of  all  religions,  preachers  of  every  doctrine,  who 
mingled  with  princes,  field-marshals,  statesmen,  anar- 
chists, builders-up,  and  pullers-down.  All  of  them  burned 
with  desire  to  be  near  to  the  crucible  in  which  the  political 
and  social  systems  of  the  world  were  to  be  melted  and 
recast.  Every  day,  in  my  walks,  in  my  apartment,  or  at 
restaurants,  I  met  emissaries  from  lands  and  peoples 
whose  very  names  had  seldom  been  heard  of  before  in 
the  West.  A  delegation  from  the  Pont-Euxine  Greeks 
called  on  me,  and  discoursed  of  their  ancient  cities  of 
Trebizond,  Samsoun,  Tripoli,  Kerassund,  in  which  I 
resided  many  years  ago,  and  informed  me  that  the}'',  too, 
desired  to  become  welded  into  an  independent  Greek 
republic,  and  had  come  to  have  their  claims  allowed. 
The  Albanians  were  represented  by  my  old  friend  Turkhan 
Pasha,  on  the  one  hand,  and  by  my  friend  Essad  Pasha, 
on  the  other — the  former  desirous  of  Italy's  protection, 
the  latter  demanding  complete  independence.  Chinamen, 
Japanese,  Koreans,  Hindus,  Kirghizes,  Lesghiens,  Cir- 
cassians, Mingrelians,  Buryats,  Malays,  and  Negroes  and 
Negroids  from  Africa  and  America  were  among  the  tribes 
and  tongues  forgathered  in  Paris  to  watch  the  rebuilding 
of  the  political  world  system  and  to  see  where  they 
"came  in." 

One  day  I  received  a  visit  from  an  Armenian  deputj^,- 

6 


THE   CITY  OF  THE   CONFERENCE 

tion;  its  chief  was  described  on  his  visiting-card  as  Presi- 
dent of  the  Armenian  RepubHc  of  the  Caucasus.  When 
he  was  shown  into  my  apartment  in  the  Hotel  Vendome, 
I  recognized  two  of  its  members  as  old  acquaintances 
with  whom  I  had  occasional  intercourse  in  Erzerum, 
Kipri  Keui,  and  other  places  during  the  Armenian  mas- 
sacres of  the  year  1895.  We  had  not  met  since  then. 
They  revived  old  memories,  completed  for  me  the  life- 
stories  of  several  of  our  common  friends  and  acquaintances, 
and  narrated  interesting  episodes  of  local  history.  And 
having  requested  my  co-operation,  the  President  and  his 
colleagues  left  me  and  once  more  passed  out  of  my  life. 
Another  actor  on  the  world-stage  whom  I  had  encoun- 
tered more  than  once  before  was  the  "heroic"  King  of 
Montenegro.  He  often  crossed  my  path  during  the  Con- 
ference, and  set  me  musing  on  the  marvelous  ups  and 
downs  of  human  existence.  This  potentate's  life  offers 
a  rich  field  of  research  to  the  psychologist.  I  had  watched 
it  myself  at  various  times  and  with  curious  results.  For 
I  had  met  him  in  various  European  capitals  during  the 
past  thirty  years,  and  before  the  time  when  Tsar  Alexander 
HI  publicly  spoke  of  him  as  Russia's  only  friend.  King 
Nikita  owes  such  success  in  life  as  he  can  look  back  on 
with  satisfaction  to  his  adaptation  of  St.  Paul's  maxim 
of  being  all  things  to  all  men.  Thus  in  St.  Petersburg 
he  was  a  good  Russian,  in  Vienna  a  patriotic  Austrian,  in 
Rome  a  sentimental  Italian.  He  was  also  a  warrior,  a 
poet  after  his  own  fashion,  a  money-getter,  and  a  speculator 
on  'Change.  His  alleged  martial  feats  and  his  wily, 
diplomatic  moves  ever  since  the  first  Balkan  war  abound 
in  surprises,  and  would  repay  close  investigation.  The 
ease  with  which  the  Austrians  captured  Mount  Lovtchen 
and  his  capital  made  a  lasting  impression  on  those  of  his 
allies  who  were  acquainted  with  the  story,  the  conse- 
quences of  which  he  could  not  foresee.     What  everybody 

7 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

seemed  to  know  was  that  if  the  Teutons  had  defeated 
the  Entente,  King  Nikita's  son  Mirko,  who  had  settled 
down  for  the  purpose  in  Vienna,  would  have  been  set 
on  the  throne  in  place  of  his  father  by  the  Austrians; 
whereas  if  the  Allies  should  win,  the  worldly-wise  monarch 
would  have  retained  his  crown  as  their  champion.  But 
these  well-laid  plans  went  all  agley.  Prince  Mirko  died 
and  King  Nikita  was  deposed.  For  a  time  he  resided  at 
a  hotel,  a  few  houses  from  me,  and  I  passed  him  now  and 
again  as  he  was  on  his  way  to  plead  his  lost  cause  before 
the  distinguished  wreckers  of  thrones  and  regimes. 

It  seemed  as  though,  in  order  to  provide  Paris  with  a 
cosm^opolitan  population,  the  world  was  drained  of  its 
rulers,  of  its  prosperous  and  luckless  financiers,  of  its  high 
and  low  adventurers,  of  its  tribe  of  fortune-seekers,  and 
its  pushing  men  and  women  of  every  description.  And 
the  result  was  an  odd  blend  of  classes  and  individuals 
worthy,  it  may  be,  of  the  new  democratic  era,  but  unprec- 
edented. It  was  welcomed  as  of  good  augury,  for 
instance,  that  in  the  stately  Hotel  Majestic,  where  the 
spokesmen  of  the  British  Empire  had  their  residence, 
monocled  diplomatists  mingled  with  spry  typewriters, 
smart  amanuenses,  and  even  with  bright-eyed  chamber- 
maids at  the  evening  dances.^  The  British  Premier  him- 
self occasionally  witnessed  the  cheering  spectacle  with 
manifest  pleasure.  Self-made  statesmen,  scions  of  fallen 
dynasties,  ex-premiers,  and  ministers,  who  formerly 
swayed  the  fortunes  of  the  world,  whom  one  might  have 
imagined  capaces  imperii  nisi  imperassent,  were  now  the 
unnoticed  inmates  of  unpretending  hotels.  Ambassadors 
whose  most  trivial  utterances  had  once  been  listened  to 
with  concentrated  attention,  sued  days  and  weeks  for  an 
audience  of  the  greater  plenipotentiaries,  and  some  of 
them  sued  in  vain.     Russian  diplomatists  were  refused 

1  Cf .  The  Daily  Mail  (Paris  edition),  March  12,  1919. 


THE  CITY  OF  THE  CONFERENCE 

permission  to  travel  in  France  or  were  compelled  to 
undergo  more  than  average  discomfort  and  delay  there. 
More  than  once  I  sat  down  to  lunch  or  dinner  with 
brilliant  commensals,  one  of  whom  was  understood  to 
have  made  away  with  a  well-known  personage  in  order 
to  rid  the  state  of  a  bad  administrator,  and  another  had, 
at  a  secret  Vehmgericht  in  Turkey,  condemned  a  friend  of 
mine,  now  a  friend  of  his,  to  be  assassinated. 

In  Paris,  this  temporary  capital  of  the  world,  one  felt 
the  repercussion  of  every  event,  every  incident  of  moment 
wheresoever  it  might  have  occurred.  To  reside  there 
while  the  Conference  was  sitting  was  to  occupy  a  comfort- 
able box  in  the  vastest  theater  the  mind  of  men  has  ever 
conceived.  From  this  rare  coign  of  vantage  one  could 
witness  soul-gripping  dramas  of  human  history,  the  hap- 
penings of  years  being  compressed  within  the  limits  of 
days.  The  revolution  in  Portugal,  the  massacre  of 
Armenians,  Bulgaria's  atrocities,  the  slaughter  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Saratoff  and  Odessa,  the  revolt  of  the 
Koreans — all  produced  their  effect  in  Paris,  where  ofncial 
and  unofficial  exponents  of  the  aims  and  ambitions,  re- 
ligions and  interests  that  unite  or  divide  mankind  were 
continually  coming  or  going,  working  aboveground  or 
burrowing  beneath  the  surface. 

It  was  within  a  few  miles  of  the  place  w^here  I  sat  at 
table  with  the  brilliant  company  alluded  to  above  that  a 
few  individuals  of  two  different  nationalities,  one  of  them 
bearing,  it  was  said,  a  well-known  name,  hatched  the 
plot  that  sent  Portugal's  strong  man.  President  Sidonio 
Paes,  to  his  last  account  and  plunged  that  ill-starred 
land  into  chaotic  confusion.  The  plan  was  discovered  by 
the  Portuguese  military  attache,  who  warned  the  Presi- 
dent himself  and  the  War  Minister.  But  Sidonio  Paes, 
quixotic  and  foolhardy,  refused  to  take  or  brook  precau- 
tions.    A  few  weeks  later  the  assassin,  firing  three  shots, 

9 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

had  no  difficulty  in  taking  aim,  but  none  of  them  took 
effect.  The  reason  was  interesting:  so  determined  were 
the  conspirators  to  leave  nothing  to  chance,  they  had 
steeped  the  cartridges  in  a  poisonous  preparation,  whereby 
they  injured  the  mechanism  of  the  revolver,  which,  in 
consequence,  hung  fire.  But  the  adversaries  of  the  re- 
form movement  which  the  President  had  inaugurated 
again  tried  and  planned  another  attempt,  and  Sidonio 
Paes,  who  would  not  be  taught  prudence,  was  duly  shot, 
and  his  admirable  work  undone  ^  by  a  band  of  semi- 
Bolshevists. 

Less  than  six  months  later  it  was  rumored  that  a 
number  of  specially  prepared  bombs  from  a  certain 
European  town  had  been  sent  to  Moscow  for  the  speedy 
removal  of  Lenin.  The  casual  way  in  which  these  and 
kindred  matters  were  talked  of  gave  one  the  measure  of 
the  change  that  had  come  over  the  world  since  the  out- 
break of  the  war.  There  was  nobody  left  in  Europe 
whose  death,  violent  or  peaceful,  would  have  made  much 
of  an  impression  on  the  dulled  sensibilities  of  the  reading 
public.  All  values  had  changed,  and  that  of  human  life 
had  fallen  low. 

To  follow  these  swiftly  passing  episodes,  occasionally 
glancing  behind  the  scenes,  during  the  pauses  of  the  acts, 
and  watch  the  unfolding  of  the  world-drama,  was  thrill- 
ingly  interesting.  To  note  the  dubious  source,  the 
chance  occasion  of  a  grandiose  project  of  world  policy, 
and  to  see  it  started  on  its  shuffling  course,  was  a  revela- 
tion in  politics  and  psychology,  and  reminded  one  of  the 
saying  mistakenly  attributed  to  the  Swedish  Chancellor 
Oxenstjern,  "Quam  parva  sapientia  rcgitur  immdits."  - 

The  wire-pullers  were  not  always  the  plenipotentiaries. 
Among  those  were  also  outsiders  of  various  conditions, 

^  On  December  i8,  1918. 

2  "With  what  little  wisdom  the  world  is  governed." 

10 


THE  CITY  OF  THE  CONFERENCE 

sometimes  of  singular  ambitions,  who  were  generally  free 
from  conventional  prejudices  and  conscientious  scruples. 
As  traveling  to  Paris  was  greatly  restricted  by  the  govern- 
ments of  the  world,  many  of  these  unofficial  delegates 
had  come  in  capacities  widely  differing  from  those  in 
which  they  intended  to  act.  I  confess  I  was  myself  taken 
in  by  more  than  one  of  these  secret  emissaries,  whom  I 
was  innocently  instrumental  in  bringing  into  close  touch 
with  the  human  levers  they  had  come  to  press.  I  actu- 
ally went  to  the  trouble  of  obtaining  for  one  of  them 
valuable  data  on  a  subject  which  did  not  interest  him 
in  the  least,  but  which  he  pretended  he  had  traveled 
several  thousand  miles  to  study.  A  zealous  prelate,  whose 
business  was  believed  to  have  something  to  do  with  the 
future  of  a  certain  branch  of  the  Christian  Church  in  the 
East,  in  reality  held  a  brief  for  a  wholly  different  set  of 
interests  in  the  West.  Some  of  these  envoys  hoped  to 
influence  decisions  of  the  Conference,  and  they  considered 
they  had  succeeded  when  they  got  their  points  of  view 
brought  to  the  favorable  notice  of  certain  of  its  delegates. 
What  surprised  me  was  the  ease  with  which  several  of 
these  interlopers  moved  about,  although  few  of  them  spoke 
any  language  but  their  own. 

Collectivities  and  religious  and  political  associations, 
including  that  of  the  Bolshevists,  were  represented  in 
Paris  during  the  Conference.  I  met  one  of  the  Bolshevists, 
a  bright  youth,  who  was  a  veritable  apostle.  He  occu- 
pied a  post  which,  despite  its  apparent  insignificance, 
put  him  occasionally  in  possession  of  useful  information 
withheld  from  the  public,  which  he  was  wont  to  com- 
municate to  his  political  friends.  His  knowledge  of 
languages  and  his  remarkable  intelligence  had  probably 
attracted  the  notice  of  his  superiors,  who  can  have  had 
no  suspicion  of  his  leanings,  much  less  of  his  proselytizing 
activity.     However  this  may  have  been,  he  knew  a  good 

II 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

deal  of  what  was  going  on  at  the  Conference,  and  he 
occasionally  had  insight  into  documents  of  a  certain 
interest.  He  was  a  seemingly  honest  and  enthusiastic 
Bolshevik,  who  spread  the  doctrine  with  apostolic  zeal 
guided  by  the  wisdom  of  the  serpent.  He  was  ever  ready 
to  comment  on  events,  but  before  opening  his  mind  fully 
to  a  stranger  on  the  subject  next  to  his  heart,  he  usually 
felt  his  way,  and  only  when  he  had  grounds  for  believing 
that  the  fortress  was  not  impregnable  did  he  open  his 
batteries.  Even  among  the  initiated,  few  would  suspect 
the  role  played  by  this  young  proselytizer  within  one  of 
the  strongholds  of  the  Conference,  so  naturally  and 
unobtrusively  was  the  work  done.  I  may  add  that 
luckily  he  had  no  direct  intercourse  with  the  delegates. 

Of  all  the  collectivities  whose  interests  were  furthered 
at  the  Conference,  the  Jews  had  perhaps  the  most  re- 
sourceful and  certainly  the  most  influential  exponents. 
There  were  Jews  from  Palestine,  from  Poland,  Russia, 
the  Ukraine,  Rumania,  Greece,  Britain,  Holland,  and 
Belgium;  but  the  largest  and  most  brilliant  contingent 
was  sent  by  the  United  States.  Their  principal  mission, 
with  which  every  fair-minded  man  sympathized  heartily, 
was  to  secure  for  their  kindred  in  eastern  Europe  rights 
equal  to  those  of  the  populjations  in  whose  midst  they 
reside.^  And  to  the  credit  of  the  Poles,  Rumanians,  and 
Russians,  who  were  to  be  constrained  to  remove  all  the 

1  "Mr.  Bernard  Richards,  Secretary  of  the  delegation  from  the  American 
Jewish  Congress  to  the  Peace  Conference,  expressed  much  satisfaction  with 
the  work  done  in  Paris  for  the  protection  of  Jewish  rights  and  the  further- 
ance of  the  interests  of  other  minorities  involved  in  the  peace  settlement." 
{The  New  York  Herald,  July  20,  19 19.)  How  successful  was  the  influence 
of  the  Jewish  community  at  the  Peace  Conference  may  be  inferred  from 
the  following:  "Mr.  Henry  H.  Rosenfelt,  Director  of  the  American  Jewish 
Relief  Committee,  announces  that  all  New  York  agencies  engaged  in  Jewish 
relief  work  will  join  in  a  united  drive  in  New  York  in  December  to  raise 
S7, 500,000  (£1,500,000)  to  provide  clothing,  food,  and  medicines  for  thu 
six  million  Jews  throughout  Eastern  Europe  as  well  as  to  make  possible  a 
comprehensive  programme  for  their  complete  rehabilitation. — American  Radio 
News  Service."     Cf.  The  Daily  Mail,  August  19,  1919. 

12 


THE  CITY  OF  THE  CONFERENCE 

existing  disabilities,  they  enfranchised  the  Hebrew  ele- 
ments spontaneously.  But  the  Western  Jews,  who  cham- 
pioned their  Eastern  brothers,  proceeded  to  demand  a 
further  concession  which  many  of  their  own  co-religionists 
hastened  to  disclaim  as  dangerous — a  kind  of  autonomy 
which  Rumanian,  Polish,  and  Russian  statesmen,  as  well 
as  many  of  their  Jewish  fellow-subjects,  regarded  as 
tantamount  to  the  creation  of  a  state  within  the  state. 
"Whether  this  estimate  is  true  or  erroneous,  the  conces- 
sions asked  for  were  given,  but  the  supplementary  treaties 
insuring  the  protection  of  minorities  are  believed  to  have 
little  chance  of  being  executed,  and  may,  it  is  feared, 
provoke  manifestations  of  elemental  passions  in  the 
countries  in  which  they  are  to  be  applied. 

Twice  every  day,  before  and  after  lunch,  one  met  the 
"autocrats,"  the  world's  statesmen  whose  names  were  in 
every  mouth— the  wise  men  who  would  have  been  much 
wiser  than  they  were  if  only  they  had  credited  their  friends 
and  opponents  with  a  reasonable  measure  of  political 
wisdom.  These  individuals,  in  bowler  hats,  sweeping 
past  in  sumptuous  motors,  as  rarely  seen  on  foot  as 
Roman  cardinals,  were  the  destro^^ers  of  thrones,  the 
carvers  of  continents,  the  arbiters  of  empires,  the  fash- 
ioners of  the  new  heaven  and  the  new  earth — or  were 
they  only  the  flies  on  the  wheel  of  circumstance, 
to  whom  the  world  was  unaccountably  becoming  a 
riddle  ? 

This  commingling  of  civilizations  and  types  brought 
together  in  Paris  by  a  set  of  unprecedented  conditions 
was  full  of  interest  and  instruction  to  the  observer  priv- 
ileged to  meet  them  at  close  quarters.  The  av^erage  ob- 
server, however,  had  little  chance  of  conversing  with  them, 
for,  as  these  foreigners  had  no  common  meeting-place, 
they  kept  mostly  among  their  own  folk.  Only  now  and 
again  did  three  or  four  members  of  different  races,  when 

13 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

they  chanced  to  speak  some  common  language,  get  an 
opportunity  of  enjoying  their  leisure  together.  A  friend 
of  mine,  a  highly  gifted  Frenchman  of  the  fine  old  type,  a 
descendant  of  Talleyrand,  who  was  born  a  hundred  and 
fifty  years  too  late,  opened  his  hospitable  house  once  a 
week  to  the  elite  of  the  world,  and  partially  met  the 
pressing  demand. 

To  the  gaping  tourist  the  Ville  Lumiere  resembled 
nothing  so  much  as  a  huge  world  fair,  with  enormous 
caravanserais,  gigantic  booths,  gaudy  merry-go-rounds, 
squalid  taverns,  and  huge  inns.  Every  place  of  enter- 
tainment was  crowded,  and  congregations  patiently 
awaited  their  turn  in  the  street,  underterred  by  rain  or 
wind  or  snow,  offering  absurdly  high  prices  for  scant 
accommodation  and  disheartened  at  having  their  offers 
refused.  Extortion  was  rampant  and  profiteering  went 
unpunished.  Foreigners,  mainly  American  and  British, 
could  be  seen  wandering,  portmanteau  in  hand,  from  post 
to  pillar,  anxiously  seeking  where  to  lay  their  heads,  and 
made  desperate  by  failure,  fatigue,  and  nightfall.  The 
cost  of  living  which  harassed  the  bulk  of  the  people  was 
fast  becoming  the  stumbling-block  of  governments  and 
the  most  powerful  lever  of  revolutionaries.  The  chief  of 
the  peace  armies  resided  in  sumptuous  hotels,  furnished 
luxuriously  in  dubious  taste,  flooded  after  sundown  with 
dazzling  light,  and  filled  by  day  with  the  buzz  of  idle 
chatter,  the  shuffling  of  feet,  the  banging  of  doors,  and  the 
ringing  of  bells.  Music  and  dancing  enlivened  the  in- 
mates when  their  day's  toil  w^as  over  and  time  had  to  be 
killed.  Thus,  within,  one  could  find  anxious  deliberation 
and  warm  debate ;  without,  noisy  revel  and  vulgar  brawl. 
"Fate's  a  fiddler;  life's  a  dance." 

To  few  of  those  visitors  did  Paris  seem  what  it  really 
was — a  nest  of  golden  dreams,  a  mist  of  memories,  a  seed- 
plot  of  hopes,  a  storehouse  of  time's  menaces. 

14 


THE  CITY  OF  THE  CONFERENCE 

THE  PARIS  CONFERENCE  AND  THE  CONGRESS  OF  VIENNA 

There  were  no  solemn  pageants,  no  impressive  cere- 
monies, such  as  those  that  rejoiced  the  hearts  of  the 
Viennese  in  1 8 14- 15  until  the  triumphal  march  of  the 
Allied  troops. 

The  Vienna  of  Congress  days  was  transformed  into  a 
paradise  of  delights  by  a  brilliant  court  which  pushed 
hospitality  to  the  point  of  lavishncss.  In  the  burg  alone 
were  two  emperors,  two  empresses,  four  kings,  one  queen, 
two  crown-princes,  two  archduchesses,  and  three  princes. 
Every  day  the  Emperor's  table  cost  fifty  thousand  gulden 
— every  Congress  day  cost  him  ten  times  that  sum. 
Galaxies  of  Europe's  eminent  personages  flocked  to  the 
Austrian  capital,  taking  with  them  their  ministers,  secre- 
taries, favorites,  and  "confidential  agents."  So  eager 
were  these  world-reformers  to  enjoy  themselves  that  the 
court  did  not  go  into  mourning  for  Queen  jVIarie  Caroline 
of  Naples,  the  last  of  Marie  Theresa's  daughters.  Her 
death  was  not  even  announced  officially  lest  it  should 
trouble  the  festivities  of  the  jovial  peace-makers! 

The  Paris  of  the  Conference,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
democratic,  with  a  strong  infusion  of  plutocracy.  It 
attempted  no  such  brilliant  display  as  that  which  flat- 
tered the  senses  or  fired  the  imagination  of  the  Viennese. 
In  19 1 9  mankind  was  simpler  in  its  tastes  and  perhaps 
less  esthetic.  It  is  certain  that  the  froth  of  contemporary 
frivolity  had  lost  its  sparkling  whiteness  and  was  grown 
turbid.  In  Vienna,  balls,  banquets,  theatricals,  military 
reviews,  followed  one  another  in  dizzy  succession  and  en- 
abled politicians  and  adventurers  to  carry  on  their  in- 
trigues and  machinations  unnoticed  by  all  except  the 
secret  police.  And,  as  the  Congress  marked  the  close  of 
one  bloody  campaign  and  ushered  in  another,  one  might 
aptly  terrri  it  the  interval  between  two  tragedies.     For  a 

IS 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

time  it  seemed  as  though  this  part  of  the  likeness  might 
become  applicable  to  the  Conference  of  Paris. 

Moving  from  pleasure  to  politics,  one  found  strong  con- 
trasts as  well  as  surprising  resemblances  between  the  two 
peace-making  assemblies,  and,  it  was  assumed,  to  the 
advantage  of  the  Paris  Conference.  Thus,  at  the  Austrian 
Congress,  the  members,  while  seemingly  united,  were 
pulling  hard  against  one  another,  each  individual  or 
group  tugging  in  a  different  direction.  The  Powers  had 
been  compelled  by  necessity  to  unite  against  a  common 
enemy  and,  having  worsted  him  on  the  battlefield,  fell  to 
squabbling  among  themselves  in  the  Council  Chamber  as 
soon  as  they  set  about  dividing  the  booty.  In  this  re- 
spect the  Paris  Conference — the  world  was  assured  in  the 
beginning — towered  aloft  above  its  historic  predecessor. 
Men  who  knew  the  facts  declared  repeatedly  that  the 
delegates  to  the  Quai  d'Orsay  were  just  as  unanimous, 
disinterested,  and  single-minded  during  the  armistice  as 
they  were  through  the  war.     Probably  they  were. 

Another  interesting  point  of  comparison  was  supplied 
by  the  dramatis  personce  of  both  illustrious  companies. 
They  were  nearly  all  representatives  of  old  states,  but 
there  was  one  exception. 

THE    CONGRESS    CHIEF 

Mistrusted,  Feared,  Humored,  and  Obeyed 

A  relatively  new  Power  took  part  in  the  deliberations 
of  the  Vienna  Congress,  and,  perhaps,  because  of  its  loftier 
intentions,  introduced  a  jarring  nbte  into  the  concert 
of  nations.  Russia  was  then  a  newcomer  into  the 
European  councils;  indeed  she  was  hardly  yet  recognized 
as  European.  Her  gifted  Tsar,  Alexander  I,  was  an 
idealist  who  wanted,  not  so  much  peace  with  the  van- 

j6 


THE  CH\'  OF    IHL  CONFERENCE 

quished  enemy  as  a  complete  reform  of  the  ordering  of 
the  whole  world,  so  that  wars  should  thenceforward  be 
abolished  and  the  welfare  of  mankind  be  set  developing 
like  a  sort  of  pacific  pcrpetuum  mobile.  This  blessed 
change,  however,  was  to  be  compassed,  not  by  the 
peoples  or  their  representatives,  but  by  the  governments, 
led  by  himself  and  deliberating  in  secret.  At  the  Paris 
Conference  it  was  even  so. 

This  curious  type  of  public  worker — a  mixture  of  the 
mystical  and  the  practical — was  the  terror  of  the  Vienna 
delegates.  He  put  spokes  in  ever>'body's  wheel,  be- 
haved as  the  autocrat  of  the  Congress  and  felt  as  self- 
complacent  as  a  saint.  Countess  von  Thurheim  wrote  of 
him:  "He  mistrusted  his  environment  and  let  himself 
be  led  by  others.  But  he  was  thoroughly  good  and  high- 
minded  and  sought  after  the  weal,  not  merely  of  his  own 
country,  but  of  the  whole  world.  Son  cosur  eM  embrasse  le 
bonheur  du  monde."  He  realized  in  himself  the  dreams  of 
the  philosophers  about  love  for  mankind,  but  their 
Utopias  of  human  happiness  were  based  upon  the  per- 
fection both  of  subjects  and  of  princes,  and,  as  Alexander 
could  fulfil  only  one-half  of  these  conditions,  his  work 
remained  unfinished  and  the  poor  Emperor  died,  a  victim 
of  his  high-minded  illusions.^ 

The  other  personages,  Metternich  in  particular,  were 
greatly  put  out  by  Alexander's  presence.  They  labeled 
him  a  marplot  who  could  not  and  would  not  enter  into 
the  spirit  of  their  gam.e,  but  they  dared  not  offend  him. 
Without  his  brave  troops  they  could  not  have  been 
victorious  and  they  did  not  know  how  soon  they  might 
need  him  again,  for  he  represented  a  numerous  and 
powerful  people  whose  economic  and  military  resources 
promised  it  in  time  the  hegemony  of  the  world.     So,  while 

'  Countess  Lulu  von  Thurheim,  My  Life,  1788-1852.  German  edi- 
tion, Munich,  1913-14. 

17 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

they  heartily  disliked  the  chief  of  this  new  great  country, 
they  also  feared  and,  therefore,  humored  him.  They  all 
felt  that  the  enemy,  although  defeated  and  humbled,  was 
not,  perhaps,  permanently  disabled,  and  might,  at  any 
moment,  rise,  phoenix-like  and  soar  aloft  again.  The 
great  visionary  was  therefore  feted  and  lauded  and  raised 
to  a  dizzy  pedestal  by  men  who,  in  their  hearts,  set  him 
down  as  a  crank.  His  words  were  reverently  repeated 
and  his  smiles  recorded  and  remembered.  Hardly  any 
one  had  the  bad  taste  to  remark  that  even  this  millennial 
philosopher  in  the  statesman's  armchair  left  unsightly 
flaws  in  his  system  for  the  welfare  of  man.  Thus,  while 
favoring  equality  generally,  he  obstinately  refused  to 
concede  it  to  one  race,  in  fact,  he  would  not  hear  of 
common  fairness  being  meted  out  to  that  race.  It  was 
the  Polish  people  which  was  treated  thus  at  the  Vienna 
Congress,  and,  owing  to  him,  Poland's  just  claims  were 
ignored,  her  indefeasible  rights  were  violated,  and  the 
work  of  the  peace-makers  was  botched.  .  .  . 

Happily,  optimists  said,  the  Paris  Conference  was 
organized  on  a  wholly  different  basis.  Its  members 
considered  themselves  mere  servants  of  the  public- — 
stewards,  who  had  to  render  an  account  of  their  steward- 
ship and  who  therefore  went  in  salutary  fear  of  the  elec- 
torate at  home.  This  check  was  not  felt  by  the  pleni- 
potentiaries in  Vienna.  Again,  everything  the  Paris 
delegates  did  was  for  the  benefit  of  the  masses,  although 
most  of  it  was  done  by  stealth  and  unappreciated  by  them. 

The  remarkable  document  which  will  forever  be  asso- 
ciated with  the  name  of  President  Wilson  was  the  clou 
of  the  Conference.  The  League  of  Nations  scheme 
seemed  destined  to  change  fundamentally  the  relations  of 
peoples  toward  one  another,  and  the  change  was  expected 
to  begin  immediately  after  the  Covenant  had  been  voted, 
signed,   and  ratified.     But  it  was  not  relished  by  any 

i8 


THE  CITY  OF  THE  CONFERENCE 

government  except  that  of  the  United  States,  and  it  was 
in  order  to  enable  the  delegates  to  devise  such  a  wording 
of  the  Covenant  as  would  not  bind  them  to  an  obnoxious 
principle  or  commit  their  electorates  to  any  irksome 
sacrifice,  that  the  peace  treaty  with  Germany  and  the 
liquidation  of  the  war  were  postponed.  This  delay  caused 
profound  dissatisfaction  in  continental  Europe,  but  it  | 
had  the  incidental  advantage  of  bringing  home  to  the  / 
victorious  nations  the  marvelous  recuperative  powers 
of  the  German  race.  It  also  gave  time  for  the  drafting 
of  a  compact  so  admirably  tempered  to  the  human  weak- 
nesses of  the  rival  signatory  nations,  whose  passions  were 
curbed  only  by  sheer  exhaustion,  that  all  their  spokesmen 
saw  their  way  to  sign  it.  There  was  something  almost 
genial  in  the  simplicity  of  the  means  by  which  the  eminent 
promoter  of  the  Covenant  intended  to  reform  the  peoples 
of  the  world.  He  gave  them  credit  for  virtues  which  would 
have  rendered  the  League  unnecessary  and  displayed  in- 
dulgence for  passions  which  made  its  speedy  realization 
hopeless,  thus  affording  a  superfluous  illustration  of  the 
truth  that  the  one  deadly  evil  to  be  shunned  by  those 
who  would  remain  philanthropists  is  a  practical  knowledge 
of  men,  and  of  the  truism  that  the  statesman's  bane  is 
an  inordinate  fondness  for  abstract  ideas. 

One  of  the  decided  triumphs  of  the  Paris  Peace  Con- 
ference over  the  Vienna  Congress  lay  in  the  amazing 
speed  with  which  it  got  through  the  difficult  task  of 
solving  offhandedly  some  of  the  most  formidable  problems 
that  ever  exercised  the  wit  of  man.  One  of  the  Paris 
journals  contained  the  following  remarkable  announce- 
ment: "The  actual  time  consumed  in  constituting  the 
League  of  Nations,  which  it  is  hoped  will  be  the  means 
of  keeping  peace  in  the  world,  was  thirty  hours.  This 
doesn't  seem  possible,  but  it  is  true."  ^ 

^  The  New  York  Herald  (Paris  edition),  February  23,  1919. 
3  10 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

How  provokingly  slowly  the  dawdlers  of  Vienna  moved 
in  comparison  may  be  read  in  the  chronicles  of  that  time. 
The  peoples  hoped  and  believed  that  the  Congress  would 
perform  its  tasks  in  a  short  period,  but  it  was  only  after 
nine  months'  gestation  and  sore  travail  that  it  finally 
brought  forth  its  offspring— a  mountain  of  Acts  which 
have  been  moldering  in  dust  ever  since. 

The  Wilsonian  Covenant,  which  bound  together  thirty- 
two  states — a  league  intended  to  be  incomparably  more 
powerful  than  was  the  Holy  Alliance — -will  take  rank 
as  the  most  rapid  improvisation  of  its  kind  in  diplomatic 
history, 

A  comparison  between  the  features  common  to  the  two 
international  legislatures  struck  many  observers  as  even 
more  reassuring  than  the  contrast  between  their  dif- 
ferences. Both  were  placed  in  like  circumstances,  faced 
with  bewildering  and  fateful  problems  to  which  an  ex- 
hausting war,  just  ended,  had  imparted  sharp  actuality. 
One  of  the  delegates  to  the  Vienna  Congress  wrote: 

"Everything  had  to  be  recast  and  made  new,  the 
destinies  of  Germany,  Italy,  and  Poland  settled,  a  solid 
groundwork  laid  for  the  future,  and  a  commercial  system 
to  be  outlined."  ^  Might  not  those  very  words  have 
been  penned  at  any  moment  during  the  Paris  Conference 
with  equal  relevance  to  its  undertakings? 

Or  these:  "However  easily  and  gracefully  the  fine 
old  French  wit  might  turn  the  topics  of  the  day,  people 
felt  vaguely  beneath  it  all  that  these  latter  times  were 
very  far  removed  from  the  departed  era  and,  in  many 
respects,  differed  from  it  to  an  incomprehensible  degree."  ^ 
And  the  veteran  Prince  de  Eigne  remarked  to  the  Comte 
de  la  Garde:    "From  every  side  come  cries  of  Peace, 


^  Grafcn  von  Montgelas,  Denwurdigkeiten  des  bayrischen  Staatsministers 
Maximilian.     See  also  Dr.  Karl  Soil,  Der  Wiener  Kongress. 
2  Varnhagen  von  Ense. 

20 


THE  CITY  OF  THE  CONFERENCE 

Justice,  Equilibrium,  Indemnity.  .  .  .  Who  will  evolve 
order  from  this  chaos  and  set  a  dam  to  the  stream  of 
claims?"  How  often  have  the  same  cries  and  queries 
been  uttered  in  Paris? 

When  the  first  confidential  talks  began  at  the  Vienna 
Congress,  the  same  difficulties  arose  as  were  encountered 
over  a  century  later  in  Paris  about  the  number  of  states 
that  were  entitled  to  have  representatives  there.  At  the 
outset,  the  four  Cabinet  Ministers  of  Austria,  Russia, 
England,  and  Prussia  kept  things  to  themselves,  excluding 
vanquished  France  and  the  lesser  Powers.  Some  time 
afterward,  however,  Talleyrand,  the  spokesman  of  the 
worsted  nation,  accompanied  by  the  Portuguese  Minister, 
Labrador,  protested  vehemently  against  the  form  and 
results  of  the  deliberations.  At  one  sitting  passion  rose 
to  white  heat  and  Talleyrand  spoke  of  quitting  the  Con- 
gress altogether,  whereupon  a  compromise  was  struck 
and  eight  nations  received  the  right  to  be  represented. 
In  this  way  the  Committee  of  Eight  was  formed.^  In 
Paris  discussion  became  to  the  full  as  lively,  and  on  the 
first  Saturday,  when  the  representatives  of  Belgium, 
Greece,  Poland,  and  the  other  small  states  delivered 
impassioned  speeches  against  the  attitude  of  the  Big 
Five  they  were  maladroitly  answered  by  M.  Clemenceau, 
who  relied,  as  the  source  from  which  emanated  the  ' 
superior  right  of  the  Great  Powers,  upon  the  twelve  mill- 
ion soldiers  they  had  placed  in  the  field.  It  was  unfor- 
tunate that  force  should  thus  confer  privileges  at  a  Peace 
Conference  which  was  convoked  to  end  the  reign  of 
force  and  privilege.  In  Vienna  it  was  different,  but  so 
were  the  times. 

Many  of  the  entries  and  comments  of  the  chroniclers 
of  1 815  read  like  extracts  from  newspapers  of  the  first 
three  months  of  1919.     "About  Poland,  they  are  fighting 

^  Friedrich  von  Gentz. 

91 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

fiercely  and,  down  to  the  present,  with  no  decisive  result," 
writes  Count  Carl  von  Nostitz,  a  Russian  military  ob- 
server. .  .  .  "Concerning  Germany  and  her  future  feder- 
ative constitution,  nothing  has  yet  been  done,  absolutely 
nothing."  ^  Here  is  a  gloss  written  by  Countess  Elise 
von  BernstorfT,  wife  of  the  Danish  Minister:  "Most 
comical  was  the  mixture  of  the  very  different  individuals 
who  all  fancied  they  had  work  to  do  at  the  Congress.  .  .  . 
One  noticed  noblemen  and  scholars  who  had  never  trans- 
acted any  business  before,  but  now  looked  extremely  con- 
sequential and  took  on  an  imposing  bearing,  and  pro- 
fessors who  mentally  set  down  their  university  chairs 
in  the  center  of  a  listening  Congress,  but  soon  turned 
peevish  and  wandered  hither  and  thither,  complaining 
that  they  could  not,  for  the  life  of  them,  make  out  what 
was  going  on."  Again:  "It  would  have  been  to  the 
interest  of  all  Europe — rightly  understood — to  restore 
Poland.  This  matter  may  be  regarded  as  the  most 
important  of  all.  None  other  could  touch  so  nearly  the 
policy  of  all  the  Powers  represented,"  -  wrote  the  Bavarian 
Premier,  Graf  von  Montgelas,  just  as  the  Entente  press 
was  writing  in  the  year  191 9. 

The  plenipotentiaries  of  the  Paris  Conference  had  for  a 
short  period  what  is  termed  a  good  press,  and  a  rigorous 
censorship  which  never  erred  on  the  side  of  laxity,  whereas 
those  of  the  Vienna  Congress  were  criticized  without 
ruth.  For  example,  the  population  of  Vienna,  we  are 
told  by  Bavaria's  chief  delegate,  was  disappointed  when 
it  discerned  in  those  whom  it  was  wont  to  worship  as 
demigods,  only  mortals.  "The  condition  of  state  [af- 
fairs," writes  Von  Gentz,  one  of  the  clearest  heads  at  the 
Congress,  "is  weird,  but  it  is  not,  as  formerly,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  crushing  weight  that  is  hung  around  our 

1  Dr.  Karl  vSoll,  Count  Carl  von  Nostitz. 
^  Cf.  Dr.  Karl  Soil,  Der  Wiener  Kongress. 

22 


THE  CITY  OF  THE  CONFERENCE 

necks,  but  by  reason  of  the  mediocrity  and  clumsiness 
of  nearly  all  the  workers."  ^  One  consequence  of  tliis 
state  of  things  was  the  constant  upspringing  of  new  and 
unforeseen  problems,  until,  as  time  went  on,  the  be- 
wildered delegates  were  literally  overwhelmed.  "So 
many  interests  cross  each  other  here,"  comments  Count 
Carl  von  Nostitz,  "which  the  peoples  want  to  have 
mooted  at  the  long-wished-for  League  of  Nations,  that 
they  fall  into  the  oddest  shapes.  .  .  .  Look  wheresoever 
you  will,  you  are  faced  with  incongruity  and  confusion. 
.  .  .  Daily  the  claims  increase  as  though  more  and  more 
evil  spirits  were  issuing  forth  from  hell  at  the  invocation 
of  a  sorcerer  who  has  forgotten  the  spell  by  which  to 
lay  them."  -  It  was  of  the  Vienna  Congress  that  those 
words  were  written. 

In  certain  trivial  details,  too,  the  likeness  between  the 
two  great  peace  assemblies  is  remarkable.  For  example, 
Lord  Castlereagh,  who  represented  England  at  Vienna, 
had  to  return  to  London  to  meet  Parliament,  thus  incon- 
veniencing the  august  assembly,  as  Mr.  Wilson  and  Mr. 
George  were  obliged  to  quit  Paris,  with  a  Uke  effect. 
Before  Castlereagh  left  the  scene  of  his  labors,  unchari- 
table judgments  were  passed  on  him  for  allowing  home 
interests  to  predominate  over  his  international  activities. 

The  destinies  of  Poland  and  of  Germany,  which  were 
then  about  to  become  a  confederation,  occupied  the  fore- 
front of  interest  at  the  Congress  as  they  did  at  the  Con- 
ference. A  similarity  is  noticeable  also  in  the  state  of 
Europe  generally,  then  and  now.  "The  uncertain  con- 
dition of  all  Europe,"  writes  a  close  observer  in  1815,  "is 
appalling  for  the  peoples:  every  country  has  mobilized 
.  .  .  and  the  luckless  inhabitants  are  crushed  by  taxa- 
tion.     On  every  side  people  complain  that  this  state  of 

^  Dr.  Karl  Soil,  Friedrich  von  Gentz. 

2  Dr.  Karl  Soil,  Cotmt  Carl  vo7i  Nostitz,  p.  109. 

23 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

peace  is  worse  than  war  .  .  .  individuals  who  despised  Na- 
poleon say  that  under  him  the  suffering  was  not  greater 
.  .  .  every  country  is  sapping  its  own  prosperity,  so  that 
financial  conditions,  in  lieu  of  improving  since  Napoleon's 
collapse,  are  deteriorating  everywhere."  * 

In  1 815,  as  in  191 9,  the  world  pacifiers  had  their  court 
painters,  and  Isabey,  the  French  portraitist,  was  as  much 
run  after  as  was  Sir  William  Orpen  in  191 9.  In  some 
respects,  however,  there  was  a  difference.  "Isabey,"  said 
the  Prince  de  Eigne,  "is  the  Congress  become  painter. 
Come!  His  talk  is  as  clever  as  his  brush."  But  Sir 
William  Orpen  was  so  absorbed  by  his  work  that  he  never 
uttered  a  word  during  a  sitting.  The  contemporaries  of 
the  Paris  Conference  were  luckier  than  their  forebears  of 
the  Vienna  Congress — for  they  could  behold  the  lifelike 
features  of  their  benefactors  in  a  cinema.  "It  is  under- 
stood," wrote  a  Paris  journal,  "that  the  necessity  of  pre- 
serving a  permanent  record  of  the  pensonalities  and  pro- 
ceedings at  the  Peace  Conference  has  not  been  lost  sight 
of.  Very  shortly  a  series  of  cinematographic  films  of  the 
principal  delegates  and  of  the  commissions  is  to  be  made 
on  behalf  of  the  British  government,  so  that,  side  by  side 
with  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  posterity  will  be  able  to  study  the 
physiognomy  of  the  men  who  made  it."  ^  In  no  case  is  it 
likely  to  forget  them. 

So  the  great  heart  of  Paris,  even  to  a  greater  degree 
than  that  of  Vienna  over  a  hundred  years  ago,  beat  and 
throbbed  to  cosmic  measures  while  its  brain  worked 
busily  at  national,  provincial,  and  economic  questions. 

Side  by  side  with  the  good  cheer  prevalent  that  kept  the 
eminent  lawgivers  of  the  Vienna  Congress  in  buoyant 
spirits  went  the  cost  of  living,  prohibitive  outside  the 
charmed  circle  in  consequence  of  the  high  and  rising  prices. 

'  Jean  Gabriel  Eynard — the  representative  of  Geneva. 
2  The  Daily  Mail  (Paris  edition),  March  22,  1919. 

24 


THE  CITY  OF  THE  CONFERENCE 

"Every  article,"  writes  the  Comte  de  la  Garde,  one  of  the 
chroniclers  of  the  Vienna  Congress,  "but  more  especially 
fuel,  soared  to  incredible  heights.  The  Austrian  govern- 
ment found  it  necessary,  in  consequence,  to  allow  all  its 
officials  supplements  to  their  salaries  and  indemnities."^ 
In  Paris  things  were  worse.  Greed  and  disorganization 
combined  to  make  of  the  French  capital  a  vast  fleecing- 
machine.  The  sums  of  money  expended  by  foreigners  in 
France  during  all  that  time  and  a  much  longer  period  is 
said  to  have  exceeded  the  revenue  from  foreign  trade. 
There  was  hardly  any  coal,  and  even  the  wood  fuel  gave 
out  now  and  again.  Butter  was  unknown.  Wine  was 
bad  and  terribly  dear.  A  public  conveyance  could  not  be 
obtained  unless  one  paid  "double,  treble,  and  quintuple 
fares  and  a  gratuity."  The  demand  was  great  and  the 
supply  sometimes  abundant,  but  the  authorities  con- 
trived to  keep  the  two  apart  systematically. 

THE    COST    OF    LIVING 

In  no  European  country  did  the  cost  of  living  attain  the 
height  it  reached  in  France  in  the  year  1919.  Not  only 
luxuries  and  comforts,  but  some  of  life's  necessaries,  were 
beyond  the  reach  of  home-coming  soldiers,  and  this  was 
currently  ascribed  to  the  greed  of  merchants,  the  disor- 
ganization of  transports,  the  strikes  of  workmen,  and  the 
supineness  of  the  authorities,  whose  main  care  was  to  keep 
the  nation  tranquil  by  suppressing  one  kind  of  news, 
spreading  another,  and  giving  way  to  demands  which 
could  no  longer  be  denied.  There  was  another  and  more 
effectual  cause :  the  war  had  deprived  the  world  of  twelve 
million  workmen  and  a  thousand  milliard  francs'  worth 
of  goods.  But  of  this  people  took  no  account.  The 
demobilized  soldiers  who  for  years  had  been  well  fed  and 

*  Count  de  la  Garde. 

^5 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

relieved  of  solicitude  for  the  morrow  returned  home, 
flushed  with  victory,  proud  of  the  commanding  position 
which  they  had  won  in  the  state,  and  eager  to  reap  the 
rewards  of  their  sacrifices.  But  they  were  bitterly  dis- 
illusioned. They  expected  a  country  fit  for  heroes  to 
live  in,  and  what  awaited  them  was  a  condition  of  things 
to  which  only  a  defeated  people  could  be  asked  to  resign 
itself.  The  food  to  which  the  poilu  had,  for  nearly  five 
years,  been  accustomed  at  the  front  was  become,  since 
the  armistice,  the  exclusive  monoply  of  the  capitalist  or 
the  nouveau-riche  in  the  rear.  To  obtain  a  ration  of 
sugar  he  or  his  wife  had  to  stand  in  a  long  queue  for 
hours,  perhaps  go  away  empty-handed  and  return  on  the 
following  morning.  When  his  sugar-card  was  eventually 
handed  to  him  he  had  again  to  stand  in  line  outside  the 
grocer's  door  and,  when  his  turn  came  to  enter  it,  was 
frequently  told  that  the  supply  was  exhausted  and  would 
not  be  replenished  for  a  week  or  longer.  Yet  his  news- 
paper informed  him  that  there  was  plenty  of  colonial 
sugar,  ready  for  shipment,  but  forbidden  by  the  au- 
thorities to  be  imported  into  France.  I  met  many  poor 
people  from  the  provinces  and  some  resident  in  Paris  who 
for  four  years  had  not  once  eaten  a  morsel  of  sugar, 
although  the  Vv/-ell-to-do  were  always  amply  supplied.  In 
many  places  even  bread  was  lacking,  while  biscuits,  short- 
bread, and  fancy  cakes,  available  at  exorbitant  prices,  were 
exhibited  in  the  shop  windows.  Tokens  of  unbridled 
luxury  and  glaring  evidences  of  wanton  waste  were 
flaunted  daily  and  hourly  in  the  faces  of  the  humbled  men 
who  had  saved  the  nation  and  wanted  the  nation  to  realize 
the  fact.  Lucullan  banquets,  opulent  lunches,  all-night 
dances,  high  revels  of  an  exotic  character  testified  to  the 
peculiar  psychic  temper  as  well  as  to  the  material  pros- 
perity of  the  passive  elements  of  the  community  and  stung 
the  poilus  to  the  quick.     "But  what  justice,"  these  asked, 

26 


THE  CITY  OF  THE  CONFERENCE 

"can  the  living  hope  for,  when  the  glorious  dead  are  so 
soon  forgotten?"  For  one  ghastly  detail  remains  to  com- 
plete a  picture  to  which  Boccaccio  could  hardly  have  done 
justice.  "While  all  this  wild  dissipation  was  going  on 
among  the'  moneyed  class  in  the  capital  the  corpses  of 
many  gallant  soldiers  lay  unburied  and  uncovered  on  the 
shell-plowed  fields  of  battle  near  Rheims,  on  the  road  to 
Neuville-sur-Margival  and  other  places — sights  pointed 
out  to  visitors  to  tickle  their  interest  in  the  grim  spectacle 
of  war.  In  vain  individuals  expostulated  and  the  press 
protested.  As  recently  as  May  persons  known  to  me — 
my  English  secretary  was  one — looked  with  the  fascina- 
tion of  horror  on  the  bodies  of  men  who,  when  they 
breathed,  were  heroes.  They  lay  there  where  they  had 
fallen  and  agonized,  and  now,  in  the  heat  of  the  May  sun, 
were  moldering  in  dust  away — a  couple  of  hours'  motor 
drive  from  Paris.   .   .   ."  ^ 

The  soldiers  mused  and  brooded.  Since  the  war  began 
they  had  undergone  a  great  psychic  transformation. 
Stationed  at  the  very  center  of  a  sustained  fiery  crisis, 
they  lost  their  feeling  of  acquiescence  in  the  established 
order  and  in  the  place  of  their  own  class  therein.  In  the 
sight  of  death  they  had  been  stirred  to  their  depths  and 
volcanic  fires  were  found  burning  there.  Resignation  had 
thereupon  made  way  for  a  rebellious  mood  and  rebellion 
found  sustenance  everywhere.  The  poilu  demobilized 
retained  his  military  spirit,  nay,  he  carried  about  with  him 
the  very  atmosphere  of  the  trenches.  He  had  rid  him- 
self of  the  sentiment  of  fear  and  the  faculty  of  reverence 
went  with  it.     His  outlook  on  the  world  had  changed 


1  Cf.  Le  Matin,  May  31,  1919.  A  noteworthy  example  of  the  negligence 
of  the  authorities  was  narrated  by  this  journal  on  the  same  day.  To  a 
wooden  cross  with  an  inscription  recording  that  the  grave  was  tenanted  by 
"an  unknown  Frenchman"  was  hung  a  disk  containing  his  name  and  regi- 
ment! And  here  and  there  the  skulls  of  heroes  protruded  from  the  grass, 
but  the  German  tombs  were  piously  looked  after  by  Boche  prisoners, 

27 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

completely  and  his  inner  sense  reversed  the  social  order 
which  he  beheld,  as  the  eye  reverses  the  object  it  ap- 
prehends. Respect  for  persons  and  institutions  survived 
in  relatively  few  instances  the  sacredness  of  life  and  the 
fear  of  death.  He  vv^as  impressed,  too,  with  the  all- 
importance  of  his  class,  which  he  had  learned  during  the 
war  to  look  upon  as  the  Atlas  on  whose  shoulders  rest 
the  Republic  and  its  empire  overseas.  He  had  saved  the 
state  in  war  and  he  remained  in  peace-time  its  principal 
mainstay.  With  his  value  as  measured  by  these  priceless 
services  he  compared  the  low  estimate  put  upon  him 
by  those  who  continued  to  identify  themselves  with  the 
state — the  over-fed,  lazy,  self-seeking  money-getters  who 
reserved  to  themselves  the  fruits  of  his  toil. 

One  can  well  imagine — ^I  have  actually  heard — the 
poilus  putting  their  case  somewhat  as  follows:  "So 
long  as  we  filled  the  gap  between  the  death-dealing 
Teutons  and  our  privileged  compatriots  we  were  well  fed, 
warmly  clad,  made  much  of.  During  the  war  we  were 
raised  to  the  rank  of  pillars  of  the  state,  saviors  of  the 
nation,  arbiters  of  the  world's  destinies.  So  long  as  we 
faced  the  enemy's  guns  nothing  was  too  good  for  us. 
We  had  meat,  white  bread,  eggs,  wine,  sugar  in  plenty. 
But,  now  that  we  have  accomplished  our  task,  we  have 
fallen  from  our  high  estate  and  are  expected  to  become 
pariahs  anew.  We  are  to  work  on  for  the  old  gang 
and  the  class  from  which  it  comes,  until  they  plunge  us 
into  another  war.  For  what?  What  is  the  reward  for 
what  we  have  achieved,  what  the  incentive  for  what 
we  are  expected  to  accomplish?  We  cannot  afford  as 
much  food  as  before  the  war,  nor  of  the  same  quality. 
We  are  in  want  even  of  necessaries.  Is  it  for  this  that  we 
have  fought?  A  thousand  times  no.  If  we  saved  our 
nation  we  can  also  save  our  class.  We  have  the  will 
and  the  power.     Why  should  we  not  exert  them  ? "    The 


THE  CITY  OF    THE  CONFERENCE 

purpose  of  the  section  of  the  community  to  wliich  these 
demobihzed  soldiers  mainly  belonged  grew  visibly  definite 
as  consciousness  of  their  collective  force  grew  and  became 
keener.  Occasionally  it  manifested  itself  openly  in  symp- 
tomatic spurts. 

One  dismal  night,  at  a  brilliant  ball  in  a  private  man- 
sion, a  select  company  of  both  sexes,  representatives 
of  the  world  of  rank  and  fashion,  were  enjoying  them- 
selves to  their  hearts'  content,  while  their  chauffeurs 
watched  and  waited  outside  in  the  cold,  dark  streets, 
chewing  the  cud  of  bitter  reflections.  Between  the 
hours  of  three  and  four  in  the  morning  the  latter  held 
an  open-air  meeting,  and  adopted  a  resolution  which  they 
carried  out  forthwith.  A  delegation  was  sent  upstairs 
to  give  notice  to  the  light-hearted  guests  that  they  must 
be  down  in  their  respective  motors  within  ten  minutes 
on  pain  of  not  finding  any  conveyances  to  take  them 
home.  The  mutineers  were  nearly  all  private  chauffeurs 
in  the  employ  of  the  personages  to  whom  they  sent  this 
indelicate  ultimatum.  The  resourceful  host,  however, 
warded  off  the  danger  and  placated  the  rebellious  drivers 
by  inviting  them  to  an  improvised  little  banquet  of 
pdtes  de  Joie  gras,  dry  champagne,  and  other  delicacies. 
The  general  temper  of  the  proletariat  remained  un- 
changed. Tales  of  rebellion  still  more  disquieting  were 
current  in  Paris,  which,  whether  true  or  false,  were  aids 
to  a  correct  diagnosis  of  the  situation. 

A  dancing  mania  broke  out  during  the  armistice, 
which  was  not  confined  to  the  French  capital.  In  Berlin, 
Rome,  London,  it  aroused  the  indignation  of  those  whose 
sympathy  with  the  spiritual  life  of  their  respective  na- 
tions was  still  a  living  force.  It  would  seem,  however, 
to  be  the  natural  reaction  produced  by  a  tremendous 
national  calamity,  under  which  the  mainspring  of  the 
collective  mind  temporarily  gives  way  and  the  psychical 

29 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

equilibrium  is  upset.  Disillusion,  despondenc3^  and  con- 
tempt for  the  passions  that  lately  stirred  them  drive 
the  people  to  seek  relief  in  the  distractions  of  pleasures, 
among  which  dancing  is  perhaps  one  of  the  mildest. 
It  was  so  in  Paris  at  the  close  of  the  long  period  of  stress 
which  ended  with  the  rise  of  Napoleon.  Dancing  then 
went  on  uninterruptedly  despite  national  calamities  and 
private  hardships.  "Luxury,"  said  Victor  Hugo,  "is  a 
necessity  of  great  states  and  great  civilizations,  but  there 
are  moments  when  it  must  not  be  exhibited  to  the  masses." 
There  was  never  a  conjuncture  when  the  danger  of  such 
an  exhibition  was  greater  or  more  imminent  than  during 
the  armistice  on  the  Continent — for  it  was  the  period  of 
incubation  preceding  the  outbreak  of  the  most  malignant 
social  disease  to  which  civilized  communities  are  subject. 

The  festivities  and  amusements  in  the  higher  circles 
of  Paris  recall  the  glowing  descriptions  of  the  fret  and 
fever  of  existence  in  the  Austrian  capital  during  the 
historic  Vienna  Congress  a  hundred  years  ago.  Dancing 
became  epidemic  and  shameless.  In  some  salons  the 
forms  it  took  were  repellent.  One  of  my  friends,  the 
Marquis  X.,  invited  to  a  dance  at  the  house  of  a  plutocrat, 
was  so  shocked  by  what  he  saw  there  that  he  left  almost 
at  once  in  disgust.  Madame  Machin,  the  favorite 
teacher  of  the  choreographic  art,  gave  lessons  in  the  new 
modes  of  dancing,  and  her  fee  was  three  hundred  francs 
a  lesson.  In  a  few  weeks  she  netted,  it  is  said,  over  one 
hundred  thousand  francs. 

The  Prince  de  Eigne  said  of  the  Vienna  Congress :  "  Le 
Congres  danse  mais  il  ne  marche  pas."  The  French  press 
uttered  similar  criticisms  of  the  Paris  Conference,  when 
its  delegates  were  leisurely  picking  up  information  about 
the  countries  whose  affairs  they  were  forgathered  to 
settle.  The  following  paragraph  from  a  Paris  journal — ■ 
one  of  many  such — describes  a  characteristic  scene: 

30 


THE  CITY  OF  THE  CONFERENCE 

The  domestic  staff  at  the  Hotel  Majestic,  the  headquarters  of  the 
British  Delegation  at  the  Peace  Conference,  held  a  very  successful 
dance  on  Monday  evening,  attended  by  many  members  of  the  British 
Mission  and  Staff.-  The  ballroom  was  a  medley  of  plenipotentiaries 
and  chambermaids,  generals  and  orderlies,  Foreign  Office  attaches 
and  waitresses.  All  the  latest  forms  of  dancing  were  to  be  seen, 
including  the  jazz  and  the  hesitation  waltz,  and,  according  to  the 
opinion  of  experts,  the  dancing  reached  an  unusually  high  standard  of 
excellence.  Major  Lloyd  George,  one  of  the  Prime  Minister's  sons, 
was  among  the  dancers.  Mr.  G.  H.  Roberts,  the  Food  Controller, 
made  a  very  happy  little  speech  to  the  hotel  staff. ^ 

The  following  extract  is  also  worth  quoting: 

A  pacKed  house  applauded '  Hullo,  Paris!"  from  the  rise  of  the  curtain 
to  the  finale  at  the  new  Palace  Theater  (in  the  rue  Mogador),  Paris, 
last  night.  .  .  .  President  Wilson,  Mr.  A.  J.  Balfour,  and  Lord  Derby 
all  remained  until  the  fall  of  the  curtain  at  12.15  .  .  ,  and  .  .  .  were 
given  cordial  cheers  from  the  dispersing  audience  as  they  passed 
through  the  line  of  Municipal  Guards,  who  presented  arms  as  the 
distinguished  visitors  made  their  way  to  their  motor-cars.^ 

Juxtaposed  with  the  grief,  discontent,  and  physical 
hardships  prevailing  among  large  sections  of  the  popula- 
tion which  had  provided  most  of  the  holocausts  for  the 
Moloch  of  War,  the  ostentatious  gaiety  of  the  prosperous 
few  might  well  seem  a  challenge.  And  so  it  was  con- 
strued by  the  sullen  lack-alls  who  prowled  about  the 
streets  of  Paris  and  told  one  another  that  their  turn 
would  come  soon. 

When  the  masses  stare  at  the  wealthy  with  the  eyes 
one  so  often  noticed  during  the  eventful  days  of  the 
armistice  one  may  safely  conclude,  in  the  words  of  Victor 
Hugo,  that  "it  is  not  thoughts  that  are  harbored  by 
those  brains;  it  is  events." 

By  the  laboring  classes  the  round  of  festivities,  the 
theatrical  representations,   the  various  negro  and  other 

'  The  Daily  Mail  (Continental  edition),  March  12,  1919. 
2  Ibid.,  April  23,  1919. 

31 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

foreign  dances,  and  the  less-refined  pleasures  of  the  world's 
blithest  capital  were  watched  with  ill-concealed  resent- 
ment. One  often  witnessed  long  lines  of  motor-cars 
driving  up  to  a  theater,  fashionable  restaurant,  or  concert- 
hall,  through  the  opening  portals  of  which  could  be  caught 
a  glimpse  of  the  dazzling  illumination  within,  while,  a 
few  yards  farther  off,  queues  of  anemic  men  and  women 
were  waiting  to  be  admitted  to  the  shop  where  milk  or 
eggs  or  fuel  could  be  had  at  the  relatively  low  prices  fixed 
by  the  state.  The  scraps  of  conversation  that  reached 
one's  ears  were  far  from  reassuring. 

I  have  met  on  the  same  afternoon  the  international 
world  -  regenerators,  smiling,  self-complacent,  or  pre- 
occupied, flitting  by  in  their  motors  to  the  Quai  d'Orsay, 
and  also  quiet,  determined-looking  men,  trudging  along 
in  the  snow  and  slush,  wending  their  way  toward  their 
labor  conventicles,  where  they,  too,  were  drafting  laws 
for  a  new  and  strange  era,  and  I  voluntarily  fell  to  gaging 
the  distance  that  sundered  the  two  movements,  and 
asked  myself  which  of  the  inchoate  legislations  would 
ultimately  be  accepted  by  the  world.  The  question 
since  then  has  been  partially  answered  As  time  passed, 
the  high  cost  of  living  was  universally  ascribed,  as  we 
saw,  to  the  insatiable  greed  of  the  middlemen  and  the 
sluggishness  of  the  authorities,  whose  incapacity  to  or- 
ganize and  unwillingness  to  take  responsibility  increased 
and  augured  ill  of  the  future  of  the  country  unless  men 
of  different  type  should  in  the  meanwhile  take  the  reins. 
Practically  nothing  was  done  to  ameliorate  the  carrying 
power  of  the  railways,  to  utilize  the  waterways,  to  em- 
ploy the  countless  lorries  and  motor-vans  that  were  lying 
unused,  to  purchase,  convey,  and  distribute  the  provisions 
which  were  at  the  disposal  of  the  government.  Various 
ministerial  departments  would  dispute  as  to  which  should 
take  over  consignments  of  meat  or  vegetables,  and  while 

32 


THE  CITY  OF  HIE  CONFERENCE 

reports,  notes,  and  replies  were  being  leisurely  written  and 
despatched,  weeks  or  months  rolled  by,  during  which  the 
foodstuffs  became  unfit  for  human  consumption.  In  the 
middle  of  May,  to  take  but  one  typical  instance,  2,401 
cases  of  lard  and  1,418  cases  of  salt  meat  were  left  rotting 
in  the  docks  at  Marseilles.  In  the  storage  magazines  at 
Murumas,  6,000  tons  of  salt  meat  were  spoiled  because 
it  was  nobody's  business  to  remove  and  distribute  them. 
Eighteen  refrigerator-cars  loaded  with  chilled  meat  ar- 
rived in  Paris  from  Havre  in  the  month  of  June.  When 
they  were  examined  at  the  cold-storage  station  it  was 
discovered  that,  the  doors  having  been  negligently  left 
open,  the  contents  of  the  cases  had  to  be  destroyed.* 
From  Belgium  108,000  kilos  of  potatoes  were  received  and 
allowed  to  lie  so  long  at  one  of  the  stations  that  they  went 
bad  and  had  to  be  thrown  away.  When  these  and 
kindred  facts  were  published,  the  authorities,  who  had 
long  been  silent,  became  apologetic,  but  remained  through- 
out inactive.  In  other  countries  the  conditions,  if  less 
accentuated,  were  similar. 

One  of  the  dodges  to  which  unscrupulous  dealers  re- 
sorted with  impunity  and  profit  was  particularly  ingenious. 
At  the  central  markets,  whenever  any  food  is  condemned, 
the  public-health  authorities  seize  it  and  pay  the  owner 
full  value  at  the  current  market  rates.  The  marketmen 
often  turned  this  equitable  arrangement  to  account  by 
keeping  back  large  quantities  of  excellent  vegetables,  for 
which  the  population  was  yearning,  and  when  they  rotted 
and  had  to  be  carted  away,  received  their  money  value 
from  the  Public  Health  Department,  thus  attaining  their 
object,  w^hich  was  to  lessen  the  supply  and  raise  the  prices 
on  what  they  kept  for  sale.-  The  consequence  was  that 
Paris  suffered  from  a  continual  dearth  of  vegetables  and 

1  Cf.  The  New  York  Herald  (Paris  edition),  June  8,  1919. 
-  Cf.  The  New  York  Herald,  June  2,  19 19. 

33 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

fruits.  Statistics  published  by  the  United  States  gov- 
ernment showed  the  maximum  increase  in  the  cost  of 
Hving  in  four  countries  as  follows:  France,  235  per  cent.; 
Britain,  135  per  cent.;  Canada,  115  per  cent.;  and  the 
United  States,  107  per  cent.  ^  But  since  these  data  were 
published  prices  continued  to  rise  until,  at  the  beginning 
of  July,  they  had  attained  the  same  level  as  those  of 
Russia  on  the  eve  of  the  revolution  there.  In  Paris, 
Lyons,  Marseilles,  the  prices  of  various  kinds  of  fish, 
shell-fish,  jams,  apples,  had  gone  up  500  per  cent.,  cab- 
bage over  900  per  cent.,  and  celeriac  2,000  per  cent. 
Anthracite  coal,  which  in  the  year  1914  cost  56  francs  a 
ton,  could  not  be  purchased  in  191 9  for  less  than  360 
francs. 

The  restaurants  and  hotels  waged  a  veritable  war  of 
plunder  on  their  guests,  most  of  whom,  besides  the 
scandalous  prices,  which  bore  no  reasonable  relation  to 
the  cost  of  production,  had  to  pay  the  government  luxury 
tax  of  10  per  cent,  over  and  above.  A  well-known  press 
correspondent,  who  entertained  seven  friends  to  a  simple 
dinner  in  a  modest  restaurant,  was  charged  500  francs, 
90  francs  being  set  down  for  one  chicken,  and  28  for  three 
cocktails.  The  maUre  d'hoiel,  in  response  to  the  press- 
man's expostulations,  assured  him  that  these  charges 
left  the  proprietor  hardly  any  profit.  As  it  chanced, 
however,  the  journalist  had  just  been  professionally  in- 
vestigating the  cost  of  living,  and  had  the  data  at  his 
finger-ends.  As  he  displayed  his  intimate  knowledge  to 
his  host,  and  obviously  knew  where  to  look  for  redress, 
he  had  the  satisfaction  of  obtaining  a  rebate  of  150 
francs.^ 

Nothing  could  well  be  more  illuminating  than  the  fol- 
lowing curious  picture  contributed  by  a  journal  whose 

1  Cf.  The  New  York  Herald  (Paris  edition),  April  20,  1919. 
^  Lc  Figaro,  June  8,  1919. 

34 


THE  CITY  OF  THE  CONFERENCE 

representative  made  a  special  inquiry  into  the  whole 
question  of  the  cost  of  living.^  "I  was  dining  the  other 
day  at  a  restaurant  of  the  Bois  de  Boulogne.  There  was 
a  long  queue  of  people  waiting  at  the  door,  some  sixty 
persons  all  told,  mostly  ladies,  who  pressed  one  another 
closely.  From  time  to  time  a  voice  cried:  'Two  places,' 
whereupon  a  door  was  held  opened,  two  patients  entered, 
and  then  it  was  loudly  slammed,  smiting  some  of  those 
who  stood  next  to  it.  At  last  my  turn  came,  and  I  went 
in.  The  guests  were  sitting  so  close  to  one  another  that 
they  could  not  move  their  elbows.  Only  the  hands  and 
fingers  were  free.  There  sat  women  half  naked,  and  men 
whose  voices  and  dress  betra^'ed  newly  acquired  wealth. 
Not  one  of  them  questioned  the  bills  which  were  presented. 
And  what  bills!  The  hors  d'ostivre,  20  francs.  Fish,  90 
francs.  A  chicken,  150  francs.  Three  cigars,  45  francs. 
The  repast  came  to  2  50  francs  a  person  at  the  very  lowest." 
Another  journalist  commented  upon  this  story  as  follows : 
"Since  the  end  of  last  June,"  he  said,  "445,000  quintals 
of  vegetables,  the  superfluous  output  of  the  Palatinate, 
were  offered  to  France  at  nominal  prices.  And  the  cost 
of  vegetables  here  at  home  is  painfully  notorious.  Well, 
the  deal  was  accepted  by  the  competent  Commission  in 
Paris.  Everything  was  ready  for  despatching  the  con- 
signment. The  necessary  trains  were  secured.  All  that 
was  wanting  was  the  approval  of  the  French  authorities, 
who  were  notified.  Their  answer  has  not  yet  been 
given  and  already  the  vegetables  are  rotting  in  the 
magazines." 

The  authorities  pleaded  the  insufficiency  of  rolling 
stock,  but  the  press  revealed  the  hollowness  of  the  excuse 
and  the  responsibility  of  those  who  put  it  forward,  and 
showed  that  thousands  of  wagons,  lorries,  and  motor-vans 
were  idle,  deteriorating  in  the  open  air.     For  instance, 

*  L'Humanite,  July  10,  1919. 

4  35 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

between  Cognac  and  Jarnac  the  state  railways  had  left 
about  one  thousand  wagons  unused,  which  were  fast 
becoming  unusable.^  And  this  was  but  one  of  many 
similar  instances. 

It  would  be  hard  to  find  a  parallel  in  history  for  the 
rapacity  combined  with  un scrupulousness  and  ingenuity 
displayed  during  that  fateful  period  by  dishonest  indi- 
viduals, and  left  unpunished  by  the  state.  Doubtless 
France  was  not  the  only  country  in  which  greed  was 
insatiable  and  its  manifestations  disastrous.  From  other 
parts  of  the  Continent  there  also  came  bitter  complaints 
of  the  ruthlessness  of  profiteers,  and  in  Italy  their  heart- 
less vampirism  contributed  materially  to  the  revolu- 
tionary outbreaks  throughout  that  country  in  July. 
Even  Britain  was  not  exempt  from  the  scourge.  But 
the  presence  of  whole  armies  of  well-paid,  easy-going 
foreign  troops  and  officials  on  French  soil  stimulated 
greed  by  feeding  it,  and  also  their  complaints  occasionally 
bared  it  to  the  world.  The  impression  it  left  on  certain 
units  of  the  American  forces  was  deplorable.  When 
United  States  soldiers  who  had  long  been  stationed  in  a 
French  town  were  transferred  to  Germany,  where  charges 
were  low,  the  revulsion  of  feeling  among  the  straightfor- 
ward, honest  Yankees  was  complete  and  embarrassing. 
And  by  way  of  keeping  it  within  the  bounds  of  political 
orthodoxy,  they  were  informed  that  the  Germans  had 
conspired  to  hoodwink  them  by  selling  at  undercost 
prices,  in  order  to  turn  them  against  the  French.  It  was 
an  insidious  form  of  German  propaganda ! 

On  the  other  hand,  the  experience  of  British  and 
American  warriors  in  France  sometimes  happened  to  be 
so  unfortunate  that  many  of  them  gave  credence  to  the 
absurd  and  mischievous  legend  that  their  governments 
were  made  to  pay  rent  for  the  trenches  in  which  their 

*  La  Democralie  Nouvelle,  June  14,  19 19. 

36 


THE   CITY  OF  THE  CONFERENCE 

troops  fought  and  died,  and  even  for  the  graves  in  which 
the  slain  were  buried. 

An  acquaintance  of  mine,  an  American  delegate, 
wanted  an  abode  to  himself  during  the  Conference,  and, 
having  found  one  suitable  for  which  fifteen  to  twenty- 
five  thousand  francs  a  year  were  deemed  a  fair  rent,  he 
inquired  the  price,  and  the  proprietor,  knowing  that  he 
had  to  do  with  a  really  wealthy  American,  answered, 
"A  quarter  of  a  million  francs."  Subsequently  the  land- 
lord sent  to  ask  whether  the  distinguished  visitor  would 
take  the  place;  but  the  answer  he  received  ran,  "No,  I 
have  too  much  self-respect." 

Hotel  prices  in  Paris,  beginning  from  December,  191 8, 
were  prohibitive  to  all  but  the  wealthy.  Yet  they  were 
raised  several  times  during  the  Conference.  Again, 
despite  the  high  level  they  had  reached  by  the  beginning 
of  July,  they  were  actually  quintupled  in  some  hotels  and 
doubled  in  many  for  about  a  week  at  the  time  of  the 
peace  celebrations.  Rents  for  fiats  and  houses  soared 
proportionately. 

One  explanation  of  the  fantastic  rise  in  rents  is  char- 
acteristic. During  the  war  and  the  armistice,  the  govern- 
ment —  and  not  only  the  French  government  —  pro- 
claimed a  moratorium,  and  no  rents  at  all  were  paid, 
in  consequence  of  which  many  house-owners  were  impover- 
ished and  others  actually  beggared.  And  it  was  with  a 
view  to  recoup  themselves  for  these  losses  that  they 
fleeced  their  tenants,  French  and  foreign,  as  soon  as  the 
opportunity  presented  itself.  An  amusing  incident  aris- 
ing out  of  the  moratorium  came  to  light  in  the  course  of 
a  lawsuit.  An  ingenious  tenant,  smitten  with  the  passion 
of  greed,  not  content  with  occupying  his  flat  without 
paying  rent,  sublet  it  at  a  high  figure  to  a  man  who  paid 
him  well  and  in  advance,  but  by  mischance  set  fire  to  the 
place  and  died.     Thereupon  the  tenant  demanded  and 

37 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

received  a  considerable  sum  from  the  insurance  company 
in  which  the  defunct  occupant  had  had  to  insure  the 
flat  and  its  contents.  He  then  entered  an  action  at  law 
against  the  proprietor  of  the  house  for  the  value  of  the 
damage  caused  by  the  fire,  and  he  won  his  case.  The 
unfortunate  owner  was  condemned  to  pay  the  sum 
claimed,  and  also  the  costs  of  the  action.^  But  he  could 
not  recover  his  rent. 

Disorganization  throughout  France,  and  particularly  in 
Paris,  verged  on  the  border  of  chaos.  Every  one  felt 
its  effects,  but  none  so  severely  as  the  men  who  had  won 
the  war.  The  work  of  demobilization,  which  began  soon 
after  the  armistice,  but  was  early  interrupted,  proceeded 
at  snail-pace.  The  homecoming  soldiers  sent  hundreds 
of  letters  to  the  newspapers,  complaining  of  the  wearisome 
delays  on  the  journey  and  the  sharp  privations  which 
they  were  needlessly  forced  to  endure.  Thus,  whereas 
they  took  but  twenty-eight  hours  to  travel  from  Hanover 
to  Cologne — the  lines  being  German,  and  therefore  rela- 
tively well  organized — they  were  no  less  than  a  fortnight 
on  the  way  between  Cologne  and  Marseilles.^  During 
the  German  section  of  the  journey  they  were  kept  warm, 
supplied  with  hot  soup  and  coffee  twice  daily;  but  during 
the  second  half,  which  lasted  fourteen  days,  they  received 
no  beverage,  hot  or  cold.  "The  men  were  cared  for  much 
less  than  horses."  That  these  poilus  turned  against  the 
government  and  the  class  responsible  for  this  gross  neglect 
was  hardly  surprising.  One  of  them  wrote:  "They  [the 
authorities]  are  frightened  of  Bolshevism.  But  we  who 
have  not  got  home,  we  all  await  its  coming.  I  don't, 
of  course,  mean  the  real  Bolshevism,  but  even  that  kind 
which  they  paint  in  such  repellent  hues."^  The  condi- 
tions of  telegraphic  and  postal  communications  were  on  a 

^  Le  Figaro,  March  6,  191 9. 

2  L'Humanite,  May  23,  1919.  ^  Ibid, 

38 


THE  CITY  OF  THE  CONFERENCE 

par  with  everything  else.  There  was  no  guarantee  that 
a  message  paid  for  would  even  be  sent  by  the  telegraph- 
operators,  or,  if  withheld,  that  the  sender  would  be 
apprised  of  its  suppression.  The  war  arrangements  were 
retained  during  the  armistice.  And  they  were  superla- 
tively bad.  A  committee  appointed  by  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies  to  inquire  into  the  matter  officially,  reported 
that,^  at  the  Paris  Telegraph  Bureau  alone,  40,000  de- 
spatches were  held  back  ever>''  day — 40,000  a  day,  or 
58,400,000  in  four  3^ears!  And  from  the  capital  alone. 
The  majority  of  them  were  never  delivered,  and  the 
others  were  distributed  after  great  delay.  The  despatches 
which  were  retained  were,  in  the  main,  thrown  into  a 
basket,  and,  when  the  accumulation  had  become  too 
great,  were  destroyed.  The  Control  Section  never  made 
any  inquiry,  and  neither  the  senders  nor  those  to  whom 
the  despatches  were  addressed  were  ever  informed.- 
Even  important  messages  of  neutral  ambassadors  in  Rome 
and  London  fell  under  the  ban.  The  recklessness  of  these 
censors,  who  ceased  even  to  read  w^hat  they  destroyed, 
was  such  that  they  held  up  and  made  away  with  state 
orders  transmitted  by  the  great  munitions  factories,  and 
one  of  these  was  constrained  to  close  down  because  it  was 
unable  to  obtain  certain  materials  in  time. 

The  French  Ambassador  in  Switzerland  reported  that, 
owing  to  these  holocausts,  important  messages  from  that 
country,  containing  orders  for  the  French  national  loan, 
never  reached  their  destination,  in  consequence  of  which 
the  French  nation  lost  from  ten  to  twenty  million  francs. 
And  even  the  letters  and  telegrams  that  were  actually 
passed  were  so  carelessly  handled  that  many  of  them  were 
lost  on  the  way  or  delayed  until  they  became  meaningless 


^  Le  Gaiilois,  March  23,  1919.     The  New   York  Herald   (Paris  edition), 
March  22,  1919.     L'Echo  de  Paris,  June  12,  1919. 
^  The  New  York  Herald,  March  22,  1919. 

39 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

to  the  addressee.  So,  for  instance,  an  official  letter 
despatched  by  the  Minister  of  Commerce  to  the  Minister 
of  Finance  in  Paris  was  sent  to  Calcutta,  where  the  French 
Consul-General  came  across  it,  and  had  it  directed  back 
to  Paris.  The  correspondent  of  the  Echo  de  Paris,  who 
was  sent  to  Switzerland  by  his  journal,  was  forbidden  by 
law  to  carry  more  than  one  thousand  francs  over  the 
frontier,  nor  was  the  management  of  the  journal  per- 
mitted to  forward  to  him  more  than  two  hundred  francs 
at  a  time.  And  when  a  telegram  was  given  up  in  Paris, 
crediting  him  with  two  hundred  francs,  it  was  stopped 
by  the  censor.  Eleven  days  were  let  go  by  without  in- 
forming the  persons  concerned.  When  the  administrator 
of  the  journal  questioned  the  chief  censor,  he  declined 
responsibility,  having  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  matter, 
but  he  indicated  the  Central  Telegraph  Control  as  the 
competent  department.  There,  too,  however,  they  were 
innocent,  having  never  heard  of  the  suppression.  It  took 
another  day  to  elicit  the  fact  that  the  economic  section 
of  the  War  Ministry  was  alone  answerable  for  the  de- 
cision. The  indefatigable  manager  of  the  Echo  de  Paris 
applied  to  the  department  in  question,  but  only  to  learn 
that  it,  too,  was  without  any  knowledge  of  what  had 
happened,  but  it  promised  to  find  out.  Soon  afterward 
it  informed  the  zealous  manager  that  the  department 
which  had  given  the  order  could  only  be  the  Exchange 
Commission  of  the  Ministry  of  Finances.  And  during 
all  the  time  the  correspondent  was  in  Zurich  without 
money  to  pay  for  telegrams  or  to  settle  his  hotel  and 
restaurant  bills.  ^ 

The  Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs  itself,  in  a  report  on 
the  whole  subject,  characterized  the  section  of  Telegraphic 
Control  as  "an  organ  of  confusion  and  disorder  which 
has  engendered  extraordinary  abuses,  and  risked  com- 

1  L'Echo  de  Paris,  June  12,  1919. 

40 


THE  CITY  OF  THE  CONFERENCE 

promising  the  government  seriously."^  It  did  not  merely 
risk,  it  actually  went  far  to  compromise  the  government 
and  the  entire  governing  class  as  well. 

It  looked  as  though  the  rulers  of  France  were  still  un- 
consciously guided  by  the  maxim  of  Richelieu,  who  wrote 
in  his  testament,  "If  the  peoples  were  too  comfortable 
there  would  be  no  keeping  them  to  the  rules  of  duty." 
The  more  urgent  the  need  of  resourcefulness  and  guidance, 
the  greater  were  the  listlessness  and  confusion.  "There 
is  neither  unity  of  conduct,"  wrote  a  press  organ  of  the 
masses,  "nor  co-ordination  of  the  Departments  of  War, 
Public  Works,  Revdctualing,  Transports.  All  these  ser- 
vices commingle,  overlap,  clash,  and  paralyze  one  another. 
There  is  no  method.  Thus,  whereas  France  has  coffee 
enough  to  last  her  a  twelvemonth,  she  has  not  sufficient 
fuel  for  a  week.  Scruples,  too,  are  wanting,  as  are 
punishments;  everywhere  there  is  a  speculator  who  offers 
his  purse,  and  an  official,  a  station-master,  or  a  subaltern 
to  stretch  out  his  hand.  .  .  .  Shortsightedness,  disorder, 
waste,  the  frittering  away  of  public  moneys  and  irre- 
sponsibility: that  is  the  balance.  .   .  ."- 

That  the  spectacle  of  the  country  sinking  in  this  ad- 
ministrative quagmire  was  not  conducive  to  the  mainte- 
nance of  confidence  in  its  ruling  classes  can  well  be 
imagined.  On  all  sides  voices  were  uplifted,  not  merely 
against  the  Cabinet,  whose  members  were  assumed  to  be 
actuated  by  patriotic  motives  and  guided  by  their  own 
lights,  but  against  the  whole  class  from  which  they  sprang, 
and  not  in  France  only,  but  throughout  Europe.  Noth- 
ing, it  was  argued,  could  be  worse  than  what  these 
leaders  had  brought  upon  the  country,  and  a  change  from 
the  bourgeoisie  to  the  proletariat  could  not  well  be  in- 
augurated at  a  more  favorable  conjuncture. 

1  The  Netc  York  Herald,  March  22,  1919. 
^  L'Humanite,  May  23,  1919. 

41 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

In  truth  the  bourgeoisie  were  often  as  impatient  of  the 
restraints  and  abuses  as  the  homecoming  poilu.  The 
middle  class  during  the  armistice  was  subjected  to  some 
of  the  most  galling  restraints  that  only  the  war  could 
justify.  They  were  practically  bereft  of  communications. 
To  use  the  telegraph,  the  post,  the  cable,  or  the  telephone 
was  for  the  most  part  an  exhibition  of  childish  faith, 
which   generally   ended  in  the  loss  of  time  and   money. 

This  state  of  affairs  called  for  an  immediate  and  drastic 
remedy,  for,  so  long  as  it  persisted,  it  irritated  those  whom 
it  condemned  to  avoidable  hardship,  and  their  name  was 
legion.  It  was  also  part  of  an  almost  imperceptible 
revolutionary  process  similar  to  that  which  was  going  on 
in  several  other  countries  for  transferring  wealth  and 
competency  from  one  class  to  another  and  for  goading 
into  rebellion  those  who  had  nothing  to  lose  by  "violent 
change  in  the  politico-social  ordering."  The  govern- 
ment, whose  powers  were  concentrated  in  the  hands  of 
M.  Clemen ceau,  had  little  time  to  attend  to  these  griev- 
ances. For  its  main  business  was  the  re-establishment  of 
peace.  What  it  did  not  fully  realize  was  the  gravity  of 
the  risks  involved.  For  it  was  on  the  cards  that  the 
utmost  it  could  achieve  at  the  Conference  toward  the 
restoration  of  peace  might  be  outweighed  and  nullified 
by  the  consequences  of  what  it  was  leaving  undone  and 
unattempted  at  home.  At  no  time  during  the  armistice 
was  any  constructive  policy  elaborated  in  any  of  the 
Allied  countries.  Rhetorical  exhortations  to  keep  down 
expenditure  marked  the  high-water  level  of  ministerial 
endeavor  there. 

The  strikes  called  by  the  revolutionary  organizations 
whose  aim  was  the  subversion  of  the  regime  under  which 
those  monstrosities  flourished  at  last  produced  an  effect 
on  the  parliament.  One  day  in  July  the  French  Chamber 
left  the  Cabinet  in  a  minority  by  proposing  the  following 

42 


THE  CITY  OF  THE  CONFERENCE 

resolution:  "The  Chamber,  noting  that  the  cost  of  Hv- 
ing  in  Belgium  has  diminished  by  a  half  and  in  England 
by  a  fourth  since  the  armistice,  while  it  has  continually 
increased  in  France  since  that  date,  judges  the  govern- 
ment's economic  policy  by  the  results  obtained  and 
passes  to  the  order  of  the  day."' 

Shortly  afterward  the  same  Chamber  recanted  and  gave 
the  Cabinet  a  majority.  In  Great  Britain,  too,  the  House 
of  Commons  put  pressure  on  the  government,  which  at 
last  was  forced  to  act. 

On  the  other  hand,  extravagance  was  systematically 
encouraged  everyw^here  by  the  shortsighted  measures 
which  the  authorities  adopted  and  maintained  as  well 
as  by  the  wanton  waste  promoted  or  tolerated  by  the 
incapacity  of  their  representatives.  In  France  the  mora- 
torium and  immunity  from  taxation  gave  a  fillip  to  reck- 
lessness. People  who  had  hoarded  their  earnings  before 
the  war,  now  that  they  were  dispensed  from  paying  rent 
and  relieved  of  fair  taxes,  paid  out  money  ungrudgingly 
for  luxuries  and  then  struck  for  higher  salaries  and  wages. 

Even  the  Deputies  of  the  Chamber,  which  did  nothing  to 
mitigate  the  evil  complained  of,  manifested  a  desire  to  have 
their  own  salaries — six  hundred  pounds  a  year — aug- 
mented proportionately  to  the  increased  cost  of  living; 
but  in  view  of  the  headstrong  current  of  popular  opinion 
against  parliamentarism  the  government  deemed  it  im- 
politic to  raise  the  point  at  that  conjuncture. 

Most  of  the  working-men's  demands  in  France  as  in 
Britain  were  granted,  but  the  relief  they  promised  was 
illusory,  for  prices  still  went  up,  leaving  the  recipients  of 
the  relief  no  better  off.  And  as  the  wages  payable  for 
labor  are  limited,  whereas  prices  may  ascend  to  any 
height,  the  embittered  laborer  fancied  he  could  better  his 
lot   by  an   appeal   to   the  force  which  his  organization 

^  On  July  i8,  1919.     Cf.  Matin,  Echo  de  Paris,  Figaro,  July  10,  1919. 

43 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

wielded.  The  only  complete  solution  of  the  problem,  he 
was  assured,  was  to  be  found  in  the  supersession  of  the 
governing  classes  and  the  complete  reconstruction  of  the 
social  fabric  on  wholly  new  foundations.*  And  some  of 
the  leaders  rashly  declared  that  they  were  unable  to 
discern  the  elements  of  any  other. 

'  Cf.  L'Hutnanite  (French  Syndicalist  organ),  July  ii,  1919. 


II 

SIGNS    OF   THE   TIMES 

SOCIETY  during  the  transitional  stage  through  which 
it  has  for  some  years  been  passing  underwent  an 
unprecedented  change  the  extent  and  intensity  of  which 
are  as  yet  but  imperfectly  realized.  Its  more  striking 
characteristics  were  determined  by  the  gradual  decom- 
position of  empires  and  kingdoms,  the  twilight  of  their 
gods,  the  drying  up  of  their  sources  of  spiritual  energy, 
and  the  psychic  derangement  of  communities  and  indi- 
viduals by  a  long  and  fearful  war.  Political  principles, 
respect  for  authority  and  tradition,  esteem  for  high 
moral  worth,  to  say  nothing  of  altruism  and  public  spirit, 
either  vanished  or  shrank  to  shadowy  simulacra.  In 
contemporary  history  currents  and  cross-currents,  eddies 
and  whirlpools,  became  so  numerous  and  bewildering 
that  it  is  not  easy  to  determine  the  direction  of  the  main 
stream.  Unsocial  tendencies  coexisted  with  collectivity 
of  effort,  both  being  used  as  weapons  against  the  larger 
community  and  each  being  set  down  as  a  manifestation 
of  democracy.  Against  every  kind  of  authority  the 
world,  or  some  of  its  influential  sections,  was  up  in  revolt, 
and  the  emergence  of  the  passions  and  aims  of  classes  and 
individuals  had  freer  play  than  ever  before. 

To  this  consummation  conservative  governments,  and 
later  on  their  chiefs  at  the  Peace  Conference,  systemati- 
cally contributed  with  excellent  intentions  and  efficacious 
measures.     They   implicitly  denied,   and   acted  on   the 

45 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

denial,  that  a  nation  or  a  race,  like  an  individual,  has 
something  distinctive,  inherent,  and  enduring  that  may 
aptly  be  termed  soul  or  character.  They  ignored  the 
fact  that  all  nations  and  races  are  not  of  the  same  age 
nor  endowed  with  like  faculties,  some  being  young  and 
helpless,  others  robust  and  virile,  and  a  third  category 
senescent  and  decrepit,  and  that  there  are  some  races 
which  Nature  has  wholly  and  permanently  unfitted  for 
service  among  the  pioneers  of  progress.  In  consequence 
of  these  views,  which  I  venture  to  think  erroneous,  they 
applied  the  same  treatment  to  all  states.  Just  as  Presi- 
dent Wilson,  by  striving  to  impose  his  pinched  con- 
ception of  democracy  and  liis  lofty  ideas  of  political 
morality  on  Mexico,  had  thrown  that  country  into 
anarchy,  the  two  Anglo-Saxon  governments  by  enforcing 
their  theories  about  the  protection  of  minorities  and 
other  political  conceptions  in  various  states  of  Europe 
helped  to  loosen  the  cement  of  the  politico-social  struc- 
ture there. 

Through  these  as  well  as  other  channels  virulent  poison 
penetrated  to  the  marrow  of  the  social  organism.  Lan- 
guage itself,  on  which  all  human  intercourse  hinges,  was 
twisted  to  suit  unwholesome  ambitions,  further  selfish 
interests,  and  obscure  the  vision  of  all  those  who  wanted 
real  reforms  and  unvarnished  truth.  During  the  war 
the  armies  were  never  told  plainly  what  they  were  strug- 
gling for;  officially  they  were  said  to  be  combating  for 
justice,  right,  self-determination,  the  sacredness  of  treaties, 
and  other  abstract  nouns  to  which  the  heroic  soldiers 
never  gave  a  thought  and  which  a  section  of  the  civil 
population  misinterpreted.  Indeed,  so  little  were  these 
shibboleths  understood  even  by  the  most  intelligent 
among  the  politicians  who  launched  them  that  one  half 
of  the  world  still  more  or  less  conscientiously  labors  to 
establish  their  contraries  and  is  anathematizing  the  other 

46 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES 

half  for  championing  injustice,  might,  and  unveracity — 
under  various  misnomers. 

Anglo-Saxondom,  taking  the  lead  of  humanity,  imitated 
the  Catholic  states  of  by-past  days,  and  began  to  impose 
on  other  peoples  its  own  ideas,  as  well  as  its  practices 
and  institutions,  as  the  best  fitted  to  awaken  their  dormant 
energies  and  contribute  to  the  social  reconstruction  of  the 
world.  In  the  interval,  language,  whether  applied  to 
history,  journalism,  or  diplomacy,  was  perverted  and 
words  lost  their  former  relations  to  the  things  connoted, 
and  solemn  promises  were  solemnly  broken  in  the  name 
of  truth,  right,  or  equity.  For  the  new  era  of  good  faith, 
justice  and  morality  was  inaugurated,  oddly  enough, 
by  a  general  tearing  up  of  obligatory  treaties  and  an 
ethical  violation  of  the  most  binding  compacts  known  to 
social  man.  This  happened  coincidently  to  be  in  keeping 
with  the  general  insurgence  against  all  checks  and 
restraints,  moral  and  social,  for  which  the  war  is  mainly 
answerable,  and  to  be  also  in  harmony  with  the  regular 
supersession  of  right  by  might  which  characterizes  the 
present  epoch  and  with  the  disappearance  of  the  sense  of 
law.  In  a  word,  under  the  auspices  of  the  amateur 
world-reformers,  the  tendency  of  Bolshevism  throve  and 
spread — an  instructive  case  of  people  serving  the  devil 
at  the  bidding  of  God's  best  friends. 

As  in  the  days  of  the  Italian  despots,  every  individual 
has  the  chance  of  rising  to  the  highest  position  in  many 
of  the  states,  irrespective  of  his  antecedents  and  no 
matter  what  blots  may  have  tarnished  his  'scutcheon. 
Neither  aristocratic  descent,  nor  public  spirit  nor  even  a 
blameless  past  is  now  an  indispensable  condition  of 
advancement.  In  Germany  the  head  of  the  Republic 
is  an  honest  saddler.  In  Austria  the  chief  of  the  govern- 
ment until  recently  was  the  assassin  of  a  prime  minister. 
The  chief  of  the  Ukraine  state  was  an  ex-inmate  of  an 

47 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

asylum.  Trotzky,  one  of  the  Russian  duumvirs,  is  said 
to  have  a  record  which  might  of  itself  have  justified  his 
change  of  name  from  Braunstein,  Bela  Kuhn,  the 
Semitic  Dictator  of  Hungary,  had  the  reputation  of  a 
thief  before  rising  to  the  height  of  ruler  of  the  Magyars. 
...  In  a  word.  Napoleon's  ideal  is  at  last  realized,  "La 
carriere  est  ouverte  aux  talents." 

Among  the  peculiar  traits  of  this  evanescent  epoch 
may  be  mentioned  inaccessibility  to  the  teaching  of  facts 
which  run  counter  to  cherished  prejudices,  aims,  and 
interests.  People  draw  from  facts  which  they  cannot 
dispute  only  the  inferences  which  they  desire.  An  amus- 
ing instance  of  this  occurred  in  Paris,  where  a  Syn- 
dicalist organ^  published  an  interesting  and  on  the  whole 
truthful  account  of  the  chaotic  confusion,  misery,  and 
discontent  prevailing  in  Russia  and  of  the  brutal  violence 
and  foxy  wiles  of  Lenin.  The  dreary  picture  included 
the  cost  of  living;  the  disorganization  of  transports;  the 
terrible  mortality  caused  by  the  after-effects  of  the  war; 
the  crowding  of  prisons,  theaters,  cinemas,  and  dancing- 
saloons;  the  eagerness  of  employers  to  keep  their  war 
prisoners  employed  while  thousands  of  demobilized  soldiers 
were  roaming  about  the  cities  and  villages  vainly  looking 
for  work;  the  absence  of  personal  liberty;  the  numerous 
arrests,  and  the  rel'ative  popularity  withal  of  the  Dictator. 
This  popularity,  it  was  explained,  the  press  contributed 
to  keep  alive,  especially  since  the  abortive  attempt  made 
on  his  life,  when  the  journals  declared  that  he  was  indis- 
pensable for  the  time  being  to  his  country. 

He  himself  was  described  as  a  hard  despot,  ruthless  as 
a  tiger  who  strikes  his  fellow-v/orkers  numb  and  dumb 
with  fear.  "But  he  is  under  no  illusions  as  to  the  real 
sentiments  of  the  members  of  the  Soviet  who  back  him, 
nor  does  he  deign  to  conceal  those  which  he  entertains 

'  L'Uumanitc-,  March  6  and  i8,  1919. 

48 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES 

toward  them.  .  .  .  Whenever  Lenin  himself  is  concerned 
justice  is  expeditious.  Some  men  will  be  delivered  from 
prison  after  many  years  of  preventive  confinement  with- 
out having  been  brought  to  trial,  others  who  fired  on 
Kerensky  will  be  kept  untried  for  an  indefinite  period, 
whereas  the  brave  Russian  patriot  who  aimed  his  re- 
volver at  Lenin,  and  whom  the  French  press  so  justly 
applauded,  had  only  three  weeks  to  wait  for  his  con- 
demnation to  death." 

This  article  appearing  in  a  Syndicalist  organ  seemed 
an  event.  Some  journals  summarized  and  commented  it 
approvingly,  until  it  was  discovered  to  be  a  sldt  on  the 
transient  conditions  in  France,  whereupon  the  "admirable 
expose  based  upon  convincing  evidence ' '  and  the  ' '  forcible 
arguments"  became  worthless.^ 

An  object-lesson  in  the  difficulty  of  legislating  in  Anglo- 
Saxon  fashion  for  foreign  countries  and  comprehending 
their  psychology  was  furnished  by  two  political  trials 
which,  taldng  place  in  Paris  during  the  Conference, 
enabled  the  delegates  to  estimate  the  distance  that 
separates  the  Anglo-Saxon  from  the  Continental  mode 
of  thought  and  action  in  such  a  fundamental  problem 
as  the  administration  of  justice.  Raoul  Villain,  the 
murderer  of  Jean  Jaures — France's  most  eminent  states- 
man— was  kept  in  prison  for  nearly  five  years  without  a 
trial.  He  had  assassinated  his  victim  in  cold  blood.  He 
had  confessed  and  justified  the  act.  The  eye-winesses  all 
agreed  as  to  the  facts.  Before  the  court,  however,  a 
long  procession  of  ministers  of  state,  politicians,  his- 
torians, and  professors  defiled,  narrating  in  detail  the 
life-story,  opinions,  and  strivings  of  the  victim,  who, 
in  the  eyes  of  a  stranger,  unacquainted  with  its  methods, 
might  have  seemed  to  be  the  real  culprit.  The  jury 
acquitted  the  prisoner. 

^  Cf.  L'Humanite,  April  lo,  1919. 

49 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

The  other  accused  man  was  a  flighty  youth  who  had 
fired  on  the  French  Premier  and  wounded  him.  He, 
however,  had  not  long  to  wait  for  his  trial.  He  was 
taken  before  the  tribunal  within  three  weeks  of  his  arrest 
and  was  promptly  condemned  to  die.^  Thus  the  assassin 
was  justified  by  the  jury  and  the  would-be  assassin  con- 
demned to  be  shot.  "Suppose  these  trials  had  taken 
place  in  my  country,"  remarked  a  delegate  of  an  Eastern 
state,  "and  that  of  the  two  condemned  men  one  had  been 
a  member  of  the  privileged  minority,  what  an  uproar  the 
incident  would  have  created  in  the  United  States  and 
England!  As  it  happened  in  western  Europe,  it  passed 
muster." 

How  far  removed  some  continental  nations  are  from 
the  Anglo-Saxons  in  their  mode  of  contemplating  and 
treating  another  momentous  category  of  social  problems 
may  be  seen  from  the  circumstance  that  the  Great 
Council  in  Basel  adopted  a  bill  brought  in  by  the  Socialist 
Welti,  authorizing  the  practice  of  abortion  down  to  the 
third  month,  provided  that  the  husband  and  wife  are 
agreed,  and  in  cases  where  there  is  no  marriage  provided 
it  is  the  desire  of  the  woman  and  that  the  operation  is 
performed  by  a  regular  physician.^ 

Another  striking  instance  of  the  difference  of  concep- 
tions between  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  continental  peoples  is 
contained  in  the  following  unsavory  document,  which  the 
historian,  whose  business  it  is  to  flash  the  light  of  criticism 
upon  the  dark  nooks  of  civilization,  can  neither  ignore 
nor  render  into  English.  It  embodies  a  significant  de- 
cision taken  by  the  General  Staff  of  the  256th  Brigade  of 
the  Army  of  Occupation  ^  and  was  issued  on  June  21,  1 9 1  g."* 

^  The  sentence  was  subsequently  commuted. 
^  La  Gazette  de  Lausanne,  May  26,  1919. 
2 128th  Division. 

*  It  was  reproduced  by  the  French  Syndicalist  organ,  L'Humanile,  of 
July  7,  1919. 

SO 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES 

EXPLOITATION  ET  POLICE  DE  LA  MAISON  PUBLIQUE  DE 
MUNCHEN-GLADBACH 

(i.)  Les  deux  femmes  composant  I'unique  personnel  de  la  maison 
publique  de  Gladbach  (2,  Gasthausstrasse),  sont  venues  en  delega- 
tion declarer  qu'ellcs  ne  pouvaient  suffire  k  la  nombreuse  clientele, 
qui  envahit  Icur  maison,  devant  laquelle  stationneraient  en  per- 
manence de  nombreux  groupes  de  clients  affames. 

EUes  declarent  que  defalcation  faite  du  service  qu'elles  doivent 
assurer  k  leurs  abormcs  beiges  et  allemands,  elles  ne  peuvent 
foumir  k  la  division  qu'un  total  dc  vingt  entrees  par  jour  (10  pour 
chacuned'elle). 

L'etablissement  d'allleurs  ne  travaille  pas  la  nuit  et  observe 
strictemcnt  le  repos  dominical.  D'autre  part  les  ressources  de  la 
ville  ne  pcrmettent  pas,  parait-il,  d'avigmenter  le  personnel.  Dans 
ces  conditions,  en  vue  d'eviter  tout  desordre  et  de  ne  pas  demander 
k  ces  femmes  un  travail  audessus  de  leurs  forces,  les  mesures 
suivantes  seront  prises: 
(2.)  JOURS  DE  TRAVAIL:  Tous  les  jours  de  la  semaine,  sauf  le 
dimanche. 

REN  DEMENT  MAXIMUM:    Chaque  jour  chaque  femme 
regoit  10  hommes,  soit  20  pour  les  deux  personnes,  120  par  semaine. 
HEURES  D'OUVERTURE:    17  heures  k  21  heures.     Aucune 
reception  n'avu-a  lieu  en  dehors  de  ces  heures, 

TARIF:  Pour  un  sejour  d'vm  quart  heure  (entree  et  sortie  de 
l'etablissement  comprises)  ...  5  marks. 

CONSOMMATIONS:  La  maison  ne  vend  aucune  boisson.     II 
n'y  a  pas  de  salle  d'attente.     Les  clients  doivent  done  se  presenter 
par  deux. 
(3.)  REPARTITION:  Les  6  jours  de  la  semaine  sont  doiines: 
Le  lundi — ler  bat,  du  164  et  C.H.R. 
Le  mardi — ler  bat.  du  169  et  C.H.R. 
Le  mercredi — 2e  bat.  du  164  et  C.H.R. 
Le  jeudi — 2e  bat.  du  169  et  C.H.R. 
Le  vendredi — 3e  bat.  du  164. 
Le  samedi — 3e  bat.  du  169. 
(4.)  Dans  chaque  bataillon  il  sera  etabli  le  jour  qui  leur  est  fixe,  20 
tickets  deposes  aux  bureaux  des  sergents-majeur  k  raison  de  5  par 
compagnie.     Les  hommes  desireux  de  rendre  visite  k  l'etablisse- 
ment reclamerout  au  bureau  de  leur  sergent-majetir,  i  ticket  qui 
leur  donnera  driot  de  priorite. 
5  SI 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

The  value  of  that  document  derives  from  its  having 
been  issued  as  an  ordinary  regulation,  from  its  having 
been  reproduced  in  a  widely  circulated  journal  of  the 
capital  without  evolving  comment,  and  from  the  strong 
light  which  it  projects  upon  one  of  the  darkest  comers 
of  the  civilization  which  has  been  so  often  and  so  elo- 
quently eulogized. 

Manifestly  the  currents  of  the  new  moral  life  which  the 
Conference  was  to  have  set  flowing  are  as  yet  somewhat 
weak,  the  new  ideals  are  still  remote,  and  the  foreshadow- 
ings  of  a  nobler  future  are  faint.  Another  token  of  the 
change  which  is  going  forward  in  the  world  was  reported 
from  the  Far  East,  but  passed  almost  unnoticed  in 
Europe.  The  Chinese  Ministry  of  Public  Instruction, 
by  an  edict  of  November  3,  1919,  officially  introduced  in 
all  secondary  schools  a  phonetic  system  of  writing  in 
place  of  the  ideograms  theretofore  employed.  This  is 
undoubtedly  an  event  of  the  highest  importance  in  the 
history  of  culture,  little  though  it  may  interest  the 
Western  world  to-day.  At  the  same  time,  as  a  philologist 
by  profession,  I  agree  with  a  continental  authority  ^ 
who  holds  that,  owing  to  the  monosyllabic  character  of 
the  Chinese  language  and  to  the  further  disadvantage  that 
it  lacks  wholly  or  partly  several  consonants,-  it  will  be 
practically  impossible,  as  the  Japanese  have  already 
found,  to  apply  the  new  alphabet  to  the  traditional 
literary  idiom.  Neither  can  it  be  employed  for  the  needs 
of  education,  journalism,  of  the  administration,  or  for 
telegraphing.  It  will,  however,  be  of  great  value  for 
elementary  instruction  and  for  postal  correspondence. 
It  is  also  certain  to  develop  and  extend.  But  its  main 
significance  is  twofold:  as  a  sign  of  China's  awakening 


'  R.  de  Saussure.     Cf.  Journal  dr  Cnteve,  August  18,  and  also  May  26, 

at 
52 


1919-  .  r  , 

2  d,  r,  t,  1,  g  (partly)  and  p,  except  at  the  boguining  of  a  word 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES 

and  as  an  innovation,  the  certain  effect  of  wliich  will  be  to 
weaken  national  unity  and  extend  regionalism  at  its 
expense.    From  this  point  of  view  the  reform  is  portentous. 

Another  of  the  signs  of  the  new  times  which  calls  for 
mention  is  the  spread  and  militancy  of  the  labor  move- 
ment, to  which  the  war  and  its  concomitants  gave  a 
potent  impulse.  It  is  differentiated  from  all  previous 
ferments  by  this,  that  it  constitutes  merely  an  episode 
in  the  universal  insurgency  of  the  masses,  who  are  fast 
breaking  through  the  thin  social  crust  formed  by  the 
upper  classes  and  are  emerging  rapidly  above  the  surface. 
One  of  the  most  impressive  illustrations  of  this  general 
phenomenon  is  the  rise  of  wages,  which  in  Paris  has  set 
the  municipal  street-sweepers  above  university  professors, 
the  former  receiving  from  7,600  to  8,000  francs  a  year, 
whereas  the  salary  of  the  latter  is  some  500  francs  less.' 

This  general  disturbance  is  the  outcome  of  many 
causes,  among  which  are  the  over-population  of  the 
world,  the  spread  of  education  and  of  equal  opportunity, 
the  anonymity  of  industrial  enterprises,  scientific  and 
unscientific  theories,  the  specialization  of  labor  and  its 
depressing  influence.-  These  factors  produced  a  labor 
organization  which  the  railways,  newspapers,  and  tele- 
graph contributed  to  perfect  and  transform  into  a  prole- 
tarian league,  and  now  all  progressive  humanity  is  tend- 
ing steadily  and  painfully  to  become  one  vast  collectivity 
for  producing  and  sharing  on  more  equitable  lines  the 
means  of  living  decently.  This  consummation  is  coming 
about  with  the  fatality  of  a  natural  law,  and  the  utmost 
the  wisest  of  governments  can  do  is  to  direct  it  through 
pacific  channels  and  dislodge  artificial  obstacles  in  its 
course. 

'  Cf.  the  French  papers  generally  for  the  month  of  May — also  Bonsoir, 
July  26,  1919. 

'  Walther  Rathcnau  has  dealt  with  this  question  in  several  of  his  recent 
pamphlets,  which  are  not  before  me  at  the  moment. 

S3 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

One  of  the  first  reforms  toward  which  labor  is  tending 
with  more  or  less  conscious  effort  is  the  abolition  of  the 
hereditary  principle  in  the  possession  of  wealth  and  in- 
fluence and  of  the  means  of  obtaining  them.  The  division 
of  labor  in  the  past  caused  the  dissociation  of  the  so- 
called  nobler  avocations  from  manual  work,  and  gradually 
those  who  followed  higher  pursuits  grew  into  a  sort  of 
hereditary  caste  which  bestowed  relative  immunity  from 
the  worst  hardships  of  life's  struggle  and  formed  a  ruling 
class.  To-day  the  masses  have  their  hands  on  the 
principal  levers  for  shattering  this  top  crust  of  the  social 
sphere  and  seem  resolved  to  press  them. 

The  problem  for  the  solution  of  which  they  now 
menacingly  clamor  is  the  establishment  of  an  approxi- 
mately equitable  principle  for  the  redistribution  of  the 
world's  resources — land,  capital,  industries,  monopolies, 
mines,  transports,  and  colonies.  Whether  socialization 
— ^their  favorite  prescription — is  the  most  effectual  way 
of  achieving  this  object  may  well  be  doubted,  but  must 
be  thoroughly  examined  and  discussed.  The  end  once 
achieved,  it  is  expected  that  mankind  will  have  become 
one  gigantic  living  entity,  endow^ed  with  senses,  ner\^es, 
heart,  arteries,  and  all  the  organs  necessary  to  operate 
and  employ  the  forces  and  wealth  of  the  planet.  The 
process  will  be  complex  because  the  factors  are  numerous 
and  of  various  orders,  and  for  this  reason  few  political 
thinkers  have  realized  that  its  many  phases  are  aspects  of 
one  phenomenon.  That  is  also  a  partial  explanation  of 
the  circumstance  that  at  the  Conference  the  political 
questions  were  separated  from  the  economic  and  treated 
by  politicians  as  paramount,  the  others  being  relegated 
to  the  background.  The  labor  legislation  passed  in  Paris 
reduced  itself,  therefore,  to  counsels  of  perfection. 

That  the  Conference  was  incapable  of  solving  a  prob- 
lem of  this  magnitude  is  self-evident.     But  the  delegates 

54 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES 

-could  and  should  have  referred  it  to  an  international 
parliament,  fully  representative  of  all  the  interests  con- 
cerned. For  the  best  way  of  distributing  the  necessaries 
and  comforts  of  life,  which  have  been  acquired  or  created 
by  manual  toil,  is  a  problem  that  can  neither  be  ignored 
nor  reasoned  away.  So  long  as  it  remains  a  problem  it 
will  be  a  source  of  intermittent  trouble  and  disorder 
throughout  the  civilized  world.  The  titles,  which  the 
classes  heretofore  privileged  could  invoke  in  favor  of 
possession,  are  now  being  rapidly  acquired  by  the  workers, 
who  in  addition  dispose  of  the  force  conferred  by  or- 
ganization, numbers,  and  resolve.  At  the  same  time 
most  of  the  stimuli  and  inventives  to  individual  enter- 
prise are  being  gradually  weakened  by  legislation,  which 
it  would  be  absurd  to  condemn  and  dangerous  to  regard 
as  a  settlement.  In  the  meanwhile  productivity  is 
falling  off,  while  the  demand  for  the  products  of  labor 
is  growing  proportionately  to  the  increase  of  population 
and  culture. 

Hitherto  the  laws  of  distribution  w^ere  framed  by  the 
strong,  who  were  few  and  utilized  the  many.  To-day 
their  relative  positions  have  shifted ;  the  many  have  waxed 
strong  and  are  no  longer  minded  to  serve  as  instruments 
in  the  hands  of  a  class,  hereditary  or  selected.  But  the 
division  of  mankind  into  producers  and  utilizers  has  ever 
been  the  solid  and  durable  mainstay  of  that  type  of 
civilization  from  which  progressive  nations  are  now  fast 
moving  away,  and  the  laws  and  usages  against  which  the 
proletariat  is  up  in  arms  are  but  its  organic  expression. 

From  the  days  of  the  building  of  the  Pyramids  down  to 
those  of  the  digging  of  the  Panama  Canal  the  chasm  be- 
tween the  two  social  orders  remained  open.  The  aboli- 
tion of  slavery  changed  but  little  in  the  arrangement — 
was,  indeed,  effected  more  in  the  interests  of  the  old 
economics  than  in  deference  to  any  strong  religious  or 

S5 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

moral  sentiment.  In  substance  the  traditional  ordering 
continued  to  exist  in  a  form  better  adapted  to  the  modi- 
fied conditions.  But  the  filling  up  of  that  chasm,  which 
is  now  going  forward,  involves  the  overthrow  of  the 
system  in  its  entirety,  and  the  necessity  of  either  rearing 
a  wholly  new  structure,  of  which  even  the  keen-sighted 
are  unable  to  discern  the  outlines,  or  else  the  restoration 
of  the  old  one  on  a  somewhat  different  basis.  And  the 
only  basis  conceivable  to-day  is  that  which  would  start 
from  the  postulate  that  some  races  of  men  come  into  the 
world  devoid  of  the  capacity  for  any  more  useful  part  in 
the  progress  of  mankind  than  that  which  was  heretofore 
allotted  to  the  proletariat.  It  cannot  be  gainsaid  that 
there  are  races  on  the  globe  which  are  incapable  of  as- 
similating the  higher  forms  of  civilization,  but  w^hich 
might  well  be  made  to  render  valuable  services  in  the 
lower  without  either  suffering  injustice  themselves  or 
demoralizing  others.  And  it  seems  nowise  impossible 
that  one  day  these  reserves  may  be  mobilized  and  sys- 
tematically employed  in  virtue  of  the  principle  that  the 
weal  of  the  great  progressive  community  necessitates 
such  a  distribution  of  parts  as  will  set  each  organ  to 
perform  the  functions  for  which  it  is  best  qualified. 

Since  the  close  of  the  war  internationalism  was  in  the 
air,  and  the  labor  movement  intensified  it.  It  stirred 
the  thought  and  warmed  the  imagination  alike  of  ex- 
ploiters and  exploited.  Reformers  and  pacifists  yearned 
for  it  as  a  means  of  establishing  a  well-knit  society  of 
progressive  and  pacific  peoples  and  setting  a  term  to 
sanguinary  wars.  Some  financiers  may  have  longed  for 
it  in  a  spirit  analogous  to  that  in  which  Nero  wished  that 
the  Roman  people  had  but  one  neck.  And  the  Con- 
ference chiefs  seemed  to  have  pictured  it  to  themselves 
— if,  indeed,  they  meditated  such  an  abstract  matter — 
in  the  guise  of  a  pax  An^lo-Saxonica,   the  distinctive 

56 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES 

feature  of  which  would  lie  in  the  transfer  to  the  two 
principal  peoples — and  not  to  a  board  representing  all 
nations — of  those  attributes  of  sovereignty  which  the  other 
states  would  be  constrained  to  give  up.  Of  these  three 
currents  flowing  in  the  direction  of  internationalism  only 
one — that  of  finance — appears  for  the  moment  likely  to 
reach  its  goal.  .  .  . 


Ill 

THE  DELEGATES 

THE  plenipotentiaries,  who  became  the  world's  arbiters 
for  a  while,  Vv^ere  truly  representative  men.  But  they 
/?  mirrored  forth  not  so  much  the  souls  of  their  respective 
'^  I  peoples  as  the  surface  spirit  that  flitted  over  an  evanescent 
^  epoch.  They  stood  for  national_£randeur,  territorial  ex- 
pansion, party  interests,  and  even  abstract  ideas.  Ex- 
ponents of  a  narrow  section  of  the  old  order  at  its  lowest 
ebb,  they  were  in  no  sense  heralds  of  the  new.  Amid  a 
labyrinth  of  ruins  they  had  no  clue  to  guide  their  foot- 
steps, in  which  the  peoples  of  the  world  were  told  to 
follow.  Only  true  political  vision,  breadth  of  judgment, 
thorough  mastery  of  the  elements  of  the  situation,  an 
instinct  for  discerning  central  issues,  genuine  concern 
for  high  principles  of  governance,  and  the  rare  moral 
courage  that  disregards  popularity  as  a  mainspring  of 
action — could  have  fitted  any  set  of  legislators  to  tackle 
the  complex  and  thorny  problems  that  pressed  for  settle- 
ment and  to  effect  the  necessary  preliminary  changes. 
That  the  delegates  of  the  principal  Powers  were  devoid 
of  many  of  these  qualities  cannot  fairly  be  made  a  sub- 
ject of  reproach.  It  was  merely  an  accident.  But  it 
was  as  unfortunate  as  their  honest  conviction  that  they 
could  accomplish  the  grandiose  enterprise  of  remodeling 
the  communities  of  the  world  without  becoming  con- 
versant with  their  interests,  acquainted  with  their  needs, 
or  even  aware  of  their  whereabouts.     For  their  failure, 

58 


THE  DELEGATES 

which  was  inevitable,  was  also  bound  to  be  tragic,  inas- 
much as  it  must  involve,  not  merely  their  own  ambition 
to  live  in  history  as  the  makers  of  a  new  and  regenerate 
era,  but  also  the  destinies  of  the  nations  and  races  which 
confidently  looked  up  to  them  for  the  conditions  of  future 
pacific  progress,  nay,  of  normal  existence. 

During  the  Conference  it  was  the  fashion  in  most 
European  countries  to  question  the  motives  as  well  as 
to  belittle  the  qualifications  of  the  delegates.     Now  that 
political  passion  has  somewhat  abated  and  the  atmosphere 
is  becoming  lighter  and  clparer,  one  may  without  pro- 
voking contradiction  pay  gf  well-deserved  tribute  to  their 
sincerity,  high  purpose,  airti  quick_resppnse  to  the  calls  of 
public  duty  and  moral  sentim^ntj  //They  were  animated 
witlr"fhe  best  intentions,  not  only  for  their  respective 
countries,  but  for  humanity  as  a  whole.     One  and  all  they 
burned  with  the  desire  to  go  as  far  as  feasible  toward 
ending   the   era  of   destructive  wslts.//  Steady,  _  umnter- 
ruptedj_^acific   development  was   th^ir  common   ideal,  ^ 
and  they  were"preparedl;ogive  up  airthatUhe^^jreasonably 
could 'to  achieve^ItTj'Tt  Is  my  belief,  for  example,  that  if 
IVfrTWilson  had  persisted  in  making  his  League  project  "N 
the  cornerstone  of  the  new  world  structure  and  in  apply-     J 
ing   his    principles    without    favor,    the    Italians    would    / 
have  accepted  it  almost  without  discussion,  and  the  other  / 
states    would    have    followed    their    example.     All    the/ 
delegates  must  have  felt  that  the  old  order  of  things,/ 
having  been  shaken  to  pieces  by  the  war  and  its  con-( 
comitants,  could  not  possibly  survive,  and  they  naturally^ 
desired  to  keep  within  evolutionary  bounds  the  process  / 
of  transition  to  the  new  system,  thus  accomplishing  by  [ 
policy  what  revolution  would  fain  accomplish  by  violence.  \ 
It  was  only  when  they  came  to  define  that  policy  with  a   \ 
view  to  its  application  that  their  unanimity  was  broken    / 
up  and  they  split  into  two  camps,  the  pacifists  and  the  milj-  / 

59 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

tarists,  or  the  democrats  and  imperialists,  as  they  have 
been  roughly  labeled.  Here,  too,  each  member  of  the 
assembly  worked  with  commendable  single-mindedness, 
and  under  a  sense  of  high  responsibility,  for  that  solution 
of  the  problem  which  to  him  seemed  the  most  conducive 
to  the  general  weal.  And  they  wrestled  heroically  one 
with  the  other  for  what  they  held  to  be  right  and  true 
relatively  to  the  prevalent  conditions.  The  circumstance 
that  the  cause  and  effects  of  this  clash  of  opinions  and 
sentiments  were  so  widely  at  variance  with  early  antici- 
pations had  its  roots  partly  in  their  limited  survey  of  the 
complex  problem,  and  partly,  too,  in  its  overwhelming 
vastness  and  their  own  unfitness  to  cope  with  it. 

The  delegates  who  aimed  at  disarmament  and  a  society 
of  pacific  peoples  made  out  as  good  a  case — once  their 
premises  were  admitted — as  those  who  insisted  upon 
guarantees,  economic  and  territorial.  Everything  de- 
pended, for  the  theory  adopted,  upon  each  individual's 
breadth  of  view,  and  for  its  realization  upon  the  temper 
of  the  peoples  and  that  of  their  neighbors.  As  under 
the  given  circumstances  either  solution  was  sure  to 
encounter  formidable  opposition,  which  only  a  doughty 
spirit  would  dare  to  affront,  compromise,  offering  a  side- 
exit  out  of  the  quandary,  was  avidly  taken.  In  this  way 
the  collective  sagacities,  working  in  materials  the  nature 
of  which  they  hardly  understood,  brought  forth  strange 
products.  Some  of  the  incongruities  of  the  details,  such, 
for  instance,  as  the  invitation  to  Prinldpo,  despatched 
anonymously,  occasionally  surpass  satire,  but  their 
bewildered  authors  are  entitled  to  the  benefit  of  extenuat- 
ing circumstances. 

On  the  momentous  issue  of  a  permanent  peace  based 
on  Mr.  Wilson's  pristine  concept  of  a  league  of  nations, 
and  in  accordance  with  rigid  principles  applied  equally 
to  all  the  states,  there  was  no  discussion.     In  other  words, 

69 


THE  DELEGATES 

it  was  tacitly  agreed  that  the  fourteen  points  should  not 
form  a  bar  to  the  vital  postulates  of  any  of  the  Great 
Powers.  It  was  only  on  the  subject  of  the  lesser  states 
and  the  equality  of  nations  that  the  debates  were  intense, 
protracted,  and  for  a  long  while  fruitless.  At  times  words 
flamed  perilously  high.  For  months  the  solutions  of  the 
Adriatic,  the  Austrian,  Turkish,  and  Thracian  problems 
hung  in  poignant  suspense,  the  public  looking  on  with 
diminishing  interest  and  waxing  dissatisfaction.  The 
usual  optimistic  assurances  that  all  would  soon  run 
smoothly  and  swiftly  fell  upon  deaf  ears.  Faith  in  the 
Conference  was  melting  away. 

The  plight  of  the  Supreme  Council  and  the  vain  exhorta- 
tions to  believe  in  its  efficiency  reminded  me  of  the  fol- 
lowing story. 

A  French  parish  priest  was  once  spiritually  comforting 
a  member  of  his  flock  who  was  tormented  by  doubts 
about  the  goodness  of  God  as  measured  by  the  imper- 
fection of  His  creation.  Having  listened  to  a  vivid 
account  of  the  troubled  soul's  high  expectation  of  its 
Maker  and  of  its  deep  disappointment  at  His  work,  the 
pious  old  cure  said:  "Yes,  my  child.  The  world  is 
indeed  bad,  as  you  say,  and  you  are  right  to  deplore  it. 
But  don't  you  think  you  may  have  formed  to  yourself  an 
exaggerated  idea  of  God?"  An  analogous  reflection 
Vv'ould  not  be  out  of  place  when  passing  judgment  on  the 
Conference  which  implicitly  arrogated  to  itself  some 
of  the  highest  attributes  of  the  Deity,  and  thus  heightened 
the  contrast  between  promise  and  achievement.  Cer- 
tainly people  expected  much  more  from  it  than  it  could 
possibly  give.  But  it  was  the  delegates  themselves  who 
had  aroused  these  expectations  announcing  the  coming 
of  a  new  epoch  at  their  fiat.  The  peoples  were  publicly 
told  by  Mr.  Lloyd  George  and  several  of  his  colleagues 
that  the  war  of  19 14-18  would  be  the  last.     His  "Never 

61 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

again"  became  a  winged  phrase,  and  the  more  buoyant 
optimists  expected  to  see  over  the  palace  of  arbitration 
which  was  to  be  substituted  for  the  battlefield,  the  inspir- 
ing inscription:  "A  la  derniere  des  guerres,  I'humanite 
reconnaissante."  ^  Mr.  Wilson's  vast  project  was  still 
more  attractive. 

Mr.  Llo^'-d  George  is  too  well  known  in  his  capacity  of 
British  parliamentarian  to  need  to  be  characterized. 
The  splendid  services  he  rendered  the  Empire  during  the 
war,  when  even  his  defects  proved  occasionally  helpful, 
will  never  be  forgotten.  Typifying  not  only  the  aims, 
but  also  the  methods,  of  the  British  people,  he  never 
seems  to  distrust  his  own  counsels  whencesoever  they 
spring  nor  to  lack  the  courage  to  change  them  in  a  twin- 
kling. He  stirred  the  soul  of  the  nation  in  its  darkest 
hour  and  communicated  his  own  glowing  faith  in  its 
star.  During  the  vicissitudes  of  the  world  struggle  he 
was  the  right  man  for  the  responsible  post  which  he 
occupied,  and  I  am  proud  of  having  been  one  of  the  first 
to  work  in  my  own  modest  way  to  have  him  placed  there. 
But  a  good  war-leader  may  be  a  poor  peace-negotiator, 
and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  there  are  few  tasks  concerned 
with  the  welfare  of  the  nation  which  Mr.  Lloyd  George 
could  not  have  tackled  with  incomparably  greater  chances 
of  accomplishing  it  than  that  of  remodeling  the  world. 
His  antecedents  were  all  against  him.  //His  lack  of  general 
equipment  was  prohibitive;  even  his  inborn  gifts  were 
disqualifications.  //One  need  not  pay  too  great  heed  to 
acrimonious  colleagues  who  set  him  down  as  a  word- 
weaving  trimmer,  between  whose  utterances  and  thoughts 
there  is  no  organic  nexus,  who  declines  to^takejjiejnitja- 
tive  unless  he  sees  adequate  forces  behind  him  ready  to  hie 
to  his  support,  who  lacks  the  moral  couragp  that  serves 

1  Cf.  Le  Temps,  May  23,  1919.  It  is  an  adaptation  of  the  inscription  over 
the  Pantheon,  "  Aux  grands  hommes,  la  Patrie  reconnaissante." 

62 


THE  DELEGATES 

as  a  parachute  for  a  fall  from  popularity,  but  possesses  in 
abundance  that  of  taking  at  the  Jlood  the  rising  tide 
which  balloon-like  lifts  its  possessor  high  above  his  fellows. 
But  judging  him  in  the  light  of  the  historic  events  in 
which  he  played  a  prominent  part,  one  cannot  dismiss 
these  criticisms  as  groundless. 

Opportunism  is.an  essential  element  C)f_statecraft,  which 
is  the  art  of  the  possible.  But  there  is  a  line  beyond 
which  it  becomes  shiftiness,  and  it  would  be  rash  to  assert 
that  INIr.  Lloyd  George  is  careful  to  keep  on  the  right 
side  of  it.  At  the  Conference  his  conduct  appeared  to  care- 
ful observers  to  be  traced  mainly  by  outside  influences, 
and  as  these  were  various  and  changing  the  result  was  a 
zigzag.  One  day  he  would  lay  down  a  certain  proposition 
as  a  dogma  not  to  be  modified,  and  before  the  week  was 
out  he  would  advance  the  contrary  proposition  and 
maintain  that  with  equal  warmth  and  doubtless  with 
equal  con viction.y^'^ Guided  by  no  sound  knowledge  and 
devoid  of  the  ballast  of  principle,  he  was  tossed  and 
driven  hither  and  thither  like  a  wreck  on  the  ocean.  Mr. 
Melyille_SlQnej,  the  veteran  American  journalist,  gave  his 
countrymen  his  impression  of  the  first  British  delegate. 
y^"Mr.  Lloyd  George,"  he  said,  "has  a  very  keen  sense  of 
humor  and  a  great  power  over  the  multitude,  but  with 
this  he  displays  a  startling  indifference  to,  if  not  ignorance 
of,  the  largeraffairs_of_na,tLQn^,'^  In  the  course  of  a  walk 
Mr.  Lloyd^Ceorgeexpressed  surprise  when  informed 
that  in  the  United  States  the  war-making  power  was 
invested  in  Congress.  "What!"  exclaimed  the  Premier, 
"you  mean  to  tell  me  that  the  President  of  the  United 
States  cannot  declare  war?  I  never  heard  that  before." 
Later,  when  questions  of  national  ambitions  were  being 
discussed,  Mr.  Lloyd  George  asked,  "What  is  that  place 
Rumania  is  so  anxious  to  get?"  meaning  Transylvania.^ 

1  The  Daily  Mail,  April  25,  1919  (Paris  edition). 

63 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

The  stories  current  of  his  praiseworthy  curiosity  about 
the  places  which  he  was  busy  distributing  to  the  peoples 
whose  destinies  he  was  forging  would  be  highly  amusing 
if  the  subject  were  only  a  private  individual  and  his 
motive  a  desire  for  useful  information,  but  on  the  repre- 
sentative of  a  great  Empire  they  shed  a  light  in  which 
the  dignity  of  his  country  was  necessarily  affected  and 
his  own  authority  deplorably  diminished.  For  moral 
authority  at  that  conjuncture  was  the  sheet  anchor  of  the 
principal  delegates.  Although  without  a  program,  Mr. 
Lloyd  George  would  appear  to  have  had  an  instinctive 
feeling,  if  not  a  reasoned  belief,  that  in  matters  of  general 
policy  his  safest  course  would  be  to  keep  pace  with  the 
President  of  the  United  States.  For  he  took  it  for 
\granted  that  Mr.  Wilson's  views  were  identical  with 
I  \those  of  the  American  people.  One  of  his  colleagues, 
endeavoring  to  dispel  this  illusion,  said:  "Your  province 
at  this  Conference  is  to  lead.  Your  colleagues,  including 
Mr.  Wilson,  will  follow.  You  have  the  Empire  behind 
you.  Voice  its  aspirations.  They  coincide  with  those 
of  the  English-speaking  peoples  of  the  world.  Mr.  Wil- 
son has  lost  his  elections,  therefore  he  does  not  stand 
for  as  much  as  you  imagine.  You  have  won  your  elec- 
tions, so  you  are  the  spokesman  of  a  vast  community 
and  the  champion  of  a  noble  cause.  You  can  knead  the 
Conference  at  your  will.  Assert  your  will.  But  even 
if  you  decide  to  act  in  harmony  with  the  United  States, 
that  does  not  mean  subordinating  British  interests  to  the 
President's  views,  which  are  not  those  of  the  majority  of 
his  people."  But  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  invincibly  diffident 
— if  diffidence  it  be — shrank  from  marching  alone,  and 
on  certain  questions  which  mattered  much  Mr.  Wilson 
had  his  way. 

One  day  there  was  an  animated  discussion  in  the  twi- 
light of  the  Paris  conclave  while  the  press  was  belauding 

64 


THE   DI^LEGATES 

the  plenipotentiaries  for  their  touching  unanimity.  The 
debate  lay  between  the  United  States  as  voiced  by 
Mr.  Wilson  and  Great  Britain  as  represented  by  Mr. 
Lloyd  George.  On  the  morrow,  before  the  conversation 
was  renewed,  a  colleague  adjured  the  British  Premier 
to  stand  firm,  urging  that  his  contention  of  the  previous 
day  was  just  in  the  abstract  and  beneficial  to  the  Empire 
as  well.  Mr.  Lloyd  George  bowed  to  the  force  of  these 
motives,  but  yielded  to  the  greater  force  of  Mr.  Wilson's 
resolve.  "Put  it  to  the  test,"  urged  the  colleague.  "I 
dare  not,"  was  the  rejoinder.  "Wilson  won't  brook  it. 
Already  he  threatens,  if  we  do,  to  leave  the  Conference 
and  return  home."  "Well  then,  let  him.  If  he  did, 
we  should  be  none  the  worse  off  for  his  absence.  But 
rest  assured,  he  won't  go.  He  cannot  afford  to  return 
home  empty-handed  after  his  splendid  promises  to  his 
countrymen  and  the  world."  Mr.  Lloyd  George  insisted, 
however,  and  said,  "But  he  will  take  his  army  away, 
too."  "What!"  exclaimed  the  tempter.  "His  army? 
Well,  I  only  .  .  ."  but  it  would  serve  no  useful  purpose 
to  quote  the  vigorous  answer  in  full. 

This  odd  mixture  of  exaggerated  self-confidence,  mis- 
na^asurement  of  forces,  and  pliability  to  external  influences 
could  not  but  be  baleful  in  one  oi  the'leaders  oi  an  assembly 
composed,  as  was  the  Paris  Conference,  of  men  each  with 
his  own  particular  ax  to  grind  ariq  impressible  only  to    t 
high   moxal_  autliority   or  overwhelming  ~Tni!ttary  J-OTce.  1/ 
It  cannot  be  "gainsaid  that  no  olie,  not  even  his  own  * 
familiars,  could  ever  foresee  the  next  move  in  Mr.  Lloyd 
George's  game  of  statecraft,  and  it  is  demonstrable  that 
on  several  occasions  he  himself  was  so  little  aware  of  what 
he  would  do  next  that  he  actually  advocated  as  indis- 
pensable measures  diametrically  opposed  to  those  which 
he  was  to  propound,  defend,  and  carry  a  week  or  two 
later,     A  conversation  which  took  place  between  him  and 

65 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

one  of  his  fellow-workers  gives  one  the  measure  of  his 
irresolution  and  fitfulness.  "Do  tell  me,"  said  this  col- 
laborator, "why  it  is  that  you  members  of  the  Supreme 
Council  are  hurriedly  changing  to-day  the  decisions  you 
came  to  after  five  months'  study,  which  you  say  was 
time  well  spent?" 

"Because  of  fresh  information  we  have  received  in 
the  meanwhile.  We  know  more  now  than  we  knew  then 
and  the  different  data  necessitate  different  treatment." 

"Yes,  but  the  conditions  have  not  changed  since  the 
Conference  opened.  Surely  they  were  the  same  in 
January  as  they  are  in  June.     Is  not  that  so  ? " 

"No  doubt,  no  doubt,  but  we  did  not  ascertain  them 
before  June,  so  we  could  not  act  upon  them  until  now." 

With  the  leading  delegates  thus  drifting  and  the  pieces 
on  the  political  chessboard  bewilderingly  disposed,  out- 
siders came  to  look  upon  the  Conference  as  a  lottery. 
Unhappily,  it  was  a  lottery  in  which  there  were  no  mere 
blanks,  but  only  prizes  or  heavy  forfeits. 

To  sum  up :  the  first  British  delegate,  essentially  a  man 
of  expedients  and  shifts,  was  incapable  of_measuring^  iTiore 
than  an  arc  ofjtlie_politirRl  Hrclg_at-a-time.  A  compre- 
hensive survey  of  a  complicated  situation  was  beyond  his 
reach.  He  relied  upon  imagination  and  Jiituitian  as 
substitutes  for  precise  knowledge  and  technical  skill. 
Hence  he  himself  could  never'lDe  sure  that  his'decision, 
however  carefully  worked  out,  would  be  final,  seeing  that 
in  June  facts  might  come  to  his  cognizance  with  which 
five  months'  investigations  had  left  him  unacquainted. 
This  incertitude  about  the  elements  of  the  problem  in- 
tensified the  ingrained  hesitancy  that  had  characterized 
his  entire  public  career  and  warped  his  judgment  ef- 
fectually. The  only  approach  to  a  guiding  principle  one 
can  find  in  his  work  at  the  Conference  was  the  loosely 
held   maxim   that   Great   Britain's  best   policy   was   to 

66 


THE  DELEGATES 

stand  in  with  the  United  States  in  all  momentous  issues 
and  to  identify  IVIr.  Wilson  with  the  United  States  for 
most  purposes  of  the  Congress.  Within  these  limits 
Mr.  Lloyd  George  was  unyielding  in  fidelity  to  the  eause 
of  France,  with  which  he  merged  that  of  civilization. 

^M.  Clemenceau  is  the  incarnation  of  the  tireless  spirilQf 
destruction. ij^  Pulling  down  has  ever  been  his  delight, 
and  it  is  largely  to  his  success  in  demolishing  the  defective 
work  of  rivals — and  all  human  work  is  defective — that  he 
owes  the  position  of  trust  and  responsibility  to  which 
the  Parliament  raised  him  during  the  last  phase  of  the  war. 
Physicallv  strong,  despite  his  advanced  age,  he  is  men- 
tally  brilliant,  and  superficial,  with  a  bias  for  paradox, 
epigram,  and  racy,  unconventional  phraseologAr.  His 
action  is  impulsiye.  In  the  Dreyfus  days  I  saw  a  good 
deal  of  M.  Clemenceau  in  his  editorial  office,  when  he 
would  unburden  his  soul  to  M.  M.  Vaughan,  the  poet 
Quillard,  and  others.  Later  on  I  approached  him  while 
he  was  chief  of  the  government  on  a  delicate  matter  of 
international  combined  with  national  politics,  on  which 
I  had  been  requested  to  sound  him  by  a  friendly  govern- 
ment, and  I  found  him,  despite  his  developed  and  sobering 
sense  of  responsibility,  whimsical,  impulsive,  and  credulous 
as  before.  When  I  next  talked  with  him  he  was  the 
rebellious  editor  of  UHomme  Enchatne,  whose  corrosive 
strictures  upon  the  government  of  the  day  were  the 
terror  of  Ministers  and  censors.  Soon  afterward  he 
himself  became  the  wielder  of  the  great  national  gagging- 
machine,  and  in  the  stringency  with  which  he  manipulated 
it  he  is  said  by  his  own  countrymen  to  have  outdone  the 
government  of  the  Third  Empire.  His  alter  ego,  Georges 
Mandel,  is  endowed  with  qualities  which  supplement 
and  correct  those  of  his  venerable  chief.  His  grasp  of 
detail  is  comprehensive  and  firm,  his  memory  retentive, 
and  his  judgment  bold  and  deliberate.     A  striking  illus- 

6  67 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

tration  of  the  audacity  of  his  resolve  was  given  in  the 
early  part  of  191 8.  Marshal  Joffre  sent  a  telegram  to 
President  Wilson  in  Washington,  and  because  he  had 
omitted  to  despatch  it  through  the  War  Ministry,  M. 
Mandel,  who  is  a  strict  disciplinarian,  proposed  that  he 
be  placed  under  arrest.  It  was  with  difficulty  that  some 
public  men  moved  him  to  leniency. 

M.  Clemenceau,  the  professional  destroyer,  who  can 
boast  that  he  overthrew  eighteen  Cabinets,  or  nineteen 
if  we  include  his  own,  was  unquestionably  the  right  man 
to  carry  on  the  war.  He  acquitted  himself  of  the  task 
superbly.  His  faith  in  the  Allies'  victory  was  unwaver- 
ing. He  never  doubted,  never  flagged,  never  was  in- 
timidated by  obstacles  nor  wheedled  by  persons.  Once 
during  the  armistice,  in  May  or  June,  when  Marshal  Foch 
expressed  his  displeasure  that  the  Premier  should  have 
issued  military  orders  to  troops  under  his  command  ^ 
without  first  consulting  him,  he  was  on  the  point  of  dis- 
missing the  Marshal  and  appointing  General  Petain  to 
succeed  him.^  Whether  the  qualities  which  stood  him  in 
such  good  stead  during  the  world  struggle  could  be  of 
equal,  or  indeed  of  much,  avail  in  the  general  constructive 
work  for  which  the  Conference  was  assembled  is  a  ques- 
tion that  needs  only  to  be  formulated.  But  in  securing 
every  advantage  that  could  be  conferred  on  his  own 
country  his  influence  on  the  delegates  was  decisive.  M. 
Clemenceau,  who  before  the  war  was  the  intimate  friend 
of  Austrian  journalists,  hated  his  country's  enemies  with 
undying  hate.  And  he  loved  France  passionately.  I 
remember  significant  words  of  his,  uttered  at  the  end  of 
the  year  1899  to  an  enterprising  young  man  who  had 
founded  a  Franco-German  review  in  Munich  and  craved 
his  moral  support.     "Is  it  possible,"  he  exclaimed,  "that 

^  In  Germany. 

2  General  P6tain  is  said  to  have  rejected  the  suggestion. 

68 


THE  DELEGATES 

it  has  already  come  to  that?  Well,  a  nation  is  not  con- 
quered until  it  accepts  defeat.  Whenever  France  gives 
up  she  will  have  deserved  her  humiliation." 

At  the  Conference  M.  Clemenceau  moved  every  lever 
to  deliver  his  country  for  all  time  from  the  danger  of 
further  invasions.     And,  being  a  j;ealist>  he  counted  only  ^~■ 
on  militaryisafe^uards.     At  the  League  of  Nations  he  was  \  , 
wont  to  sneer  until  it  dawned  upon  him  that  it  might  be     / 
forged  into  an  effective  weapon  of  national  defense/^  And  • ' 
then  he  included  it  in  the  litany  of  abstract  phrases  about 
right,    justice,    and    the    self-determination    of    peoples 
which  it  became  the  fashion  to  raise  to  the  inaccessible 
heights  where  those  ideals  are  throned  which  are  to  be 
worshiped    but    not    incarnated.     The    public    somehow 
never   took   his   conversion   to   Wilsonianism   seriously, 
neither  did  his  political  friends  until  the  League  bade 
fair  to  become  serviceable  in  his  country's  hands.     M. 

Clemenceau's  argnniTitanrpship  with  intprnationfll  polit.iVs 

was  at  once  superior  to  that  of  the  British  Premier^^^d 
very  slender.  But  his  program  at  the  Conference  was 
simple  and  coherent,  because  independent  of  geography 
and  ethnography:  France  was  to  take  Germany's  leading 
position  in  the  world,  to  create  powerful  and  devoted 
states  in  eastern  Europe,  on  whose  co-operation  she  could 
reckon,  and  her  allies  were  to  do  the  needful  in  the  way 
of  providing  due  financial  and  economic  assistance  so  as 
to  enable  her  to  address  herself  to  the  cultural  problems 
associated  with  her  new  r61e.  And  he  left  nothing  undone 
that  seemed  conducive  to  the  attainment  of  that  object. 
Against  Mr.  Wilson  he  maneuvered  to  the  extent  whicnM 
his  adviser,  M.  Tardieu,  deemed  safe,  and  one  of  his  most  I 
daring  speculations  was  on  the  President's  journey  to  the  I 
States,  during  which  M.  Clemenceau  and  his  European 
colleagues  hoped  to  get  through  a  deal  of  work  on  their  own 
lines  and  to  present  Mr.  Wilson  with  the  decisions  ready 

69  ' 


/: 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

for  ratification  on  his  return.  But  the  stratagem  was 
not  merely  apparent ;  it  was  bruited  abroad  with  indiscreet 
details,  whereupon  the  first  American  delegate  on  his 
return  broke  the  tables  of  their  laws — one  of  which 
separated  the  Treaty  from  the  Covenant — and  obliged 
them  to  begin  anew.  It  is  fair  to  add  that  M.  Clemenceau 
was  no  uncompromising  partisan  of  the  conquest  of  the 
left  bank  of  the  Rhine,  nor  of  colonial  conquests.  These 
currents  took  their  rise  elsewhere.  "We  don't  want 
protesting  deputies  in  the  French  Parliament,"  he  once 
remarked  in  the  presence  of  the  French  Minister  of 
Foreign  Affairs.^  Offered  the  choice  between  a  number 
of  bridgeheads  in  Germany  and  the  military  protection 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  peoples,  he  unhesitatingly  decided 
for  the  latter,  which  had  been  offered  to  him  by  President 
Wilson  after  the  rejection  of  the  Rhine  frontier. 

M.  Clemenceau,  whose  remarkable  mentamlacrity,  self- 
esteem,  and  love  of  sharp  repartee  occasionally  betrayed 
him  into  tactless  sallies  and  epigrammatic  retortsAieeply 
wounded  the  pride  of  more  than  one  delegate  of  the  lesser 
Powers  in  a  way  which  they  deemed  incompatible  alike 
with  circumspect  statesmanship  and  the  proverbial  hos- 
pitality of  his  country.  For  he  is  incapable  of  resisting 
the  temptation  to  launch  a^boji^jupt,  however  stinging. 
It  would  be~ungenerous,  however,  to  attach  more  impor- 
tance to  such  quickly  forgotten  utterances  than  he  meant 
them  to  carry.  An  instance  of  how  he  behaved  toward 
the  representatives  of  Britain  and  France  is  worth  record- 
ing, both  as  characterizing  the  man  and  as  extenuating 
his  offense  against  the  delegates  of  the  lesser  Powers. 

One  morning  -  M.  Clemenceau  appeared  at  the  Con- 
ference door,  and  seemed  taken  aback  by  the  large  number 
of   unfamiliar   faces   and   figures   behind    Mr.    Balfour, 

^  Cf.  Bulletin  des  Droits  dc  rHotnme,  igemc  annee,  p.  461. 
*  It  was  either  Friday,  the  4th,  or  Saturday,  the  5th  of  July. 

70 


THE  DELEGATES 

toward  whom  he  sharply  turned  with  the  brusque  in- 
terrogation: "Who  are  those  people  behind  you?  Are 
they  English?"  "Yes,  they  are,"  was  the  answer.  "Well, 
what  do  they  want  here?"  "They  have  come  on  the 
same  errand  as  those  who  are  now  following  you." 
Thereupon  the  French  Premier,  whirling  round,  beheld 
with  astonishment  and  displeasure  a  band  of  Frenchmen 
moving  toward  him,  led  by  M.  Pichon,  the  Minister  of 
Foreign  Affairs.  In  reply  to  his  question  as  to  the  motive 
of  their  anival,  he  was  informed  that  they  were  all  experts, 
who  had  been  invited  to  give  the  Conference  the  benefit 
of  their  views  about  the  revictualing  of  Hungary.  "Get 
out,  all  of  you.  You  are  not  wanted  here,"  he  cried  in  a 
commanding  voice.  And  they  all  moved  away  meekly, 
led  by  M.  Pichon,  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs.  Their 
services  proved  to  be  unnecessary,  for  the  result  reached 
by  the  Conference  was  negative. 

M.  Tardieu  cannot  be  separated  from  his  chief,  with 
whom  he  worked  untiringly,  placing  at  his  disposal  his 
intimate  knowledge  of  the  nooks  and  crannies  of  profes- 
sional and  unprofessional  diplomacy.  He  is  one  of  the 
latest  arrivals  and  most  pushing  workers  in  the  sphere  of 
the  Old  World  statecraft,  affects  Yankee  methods,  and 
speaks  English.  For  several  years  political  editor  of  the 
Temps,  he  obtained  access  to  the  state  archives,  and 
wrote  a  book  on  the  Agadir  incident  which  was  well  re- 
ceived, and  also  a  monograph  on  Prince  von  Biilow,  be- 
came Deputy,  aimed  at  a  ministerial  portfolio,  and  was 
finally  appointed  Head  Commissary  to  the  United  States. 
Faced  by  difficulties  there — mostly  the  specters  of  his 
own  former  utterances  evoked  by  German  adversaries — 
his  progress  at  first  was  slow.  He  was  accused  of  having 
approved  some  of  the  drastic  methods — especially  the 
U-boat  campaign — which  the  Germans  subsequently 
employed,  because  in  the  year  191 2,  when  he  was  writing 

71 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

on  the  subject,  France  believed  that    she  herself  pos- 
sessed the  best  submarines,  and  she  meant  to  employ 
them.     He  was  also  challenged  to  deny  that  he  had  writ- 
ten, in  August,  1 91 2,  that  in  every  war  churches  and  monu- 
ments of  art  must  suffer,  and  that  "no  army,  whatever 
its   nationality,    can   renounce   this."     He   was   further 
charged  with  having  taken  a  kindly  interest  in  air-war 
and  bomb-dropping,  and  given  it  as  his  opinion  that  it 
would  be  absurd  "to  deprive  of  this  advantage  those  who 
had   made   most   progress   in   perfecting   this   weapon." 
But  M.  Tardieu  successfully  exorcised  these  and  other 
ghosts.     And  on  his  return  from  the  United  States  he  was 
charged  with  organizing  a  press  bureau  of  his  own,  to 
supply    American    journalists    with    material    for    their 
cablegrams,  while  at  the  same  time  he  collaborated  with 
M.  Clemenceau  in  reorganizing  the  political  communities 
of  the  world.     It  is  only  in  the  French  Chamber,  of  which 
he  is  a  distinguished  member,  that  M.  Tardieu  failed  to 
score  a  brilliant  success.     Few  men  are  prophets  in  their 
own  country,  and  he  is  far  from  being  an  exception.     At 
the  Conference,  in  its  later  phases,  he  found  himself  in 
frequent  opposition  to  the  chief  of  the  Italian  delegation, 
Signor  Tittoni.     One  of  the  many  subjects  on  which  they 
disagreed  was  the  fate  of  German  Austria  and  the  political 
structure  and  orientation  of  the  independent  communities 
which  arose  on  the  ruins  of  the  Dual  Monarchy.     M.  Tar- 
dieu favored  an   arrangement  which  would  bring   these 
populations  closely  together  and  impart  to  the  whole  an 
anti-Teutonic  impress.     If  Germany  could  not  be  broken 
up  into  a  number  of  separate  states,  as  in  the  days  of  her 
weakness,  all  the  other  European  peoples  in  the  territories 
concerned  could,  and  should,  be  united  against  her,  and  at 
the  least  hindered  from  making  common  cause  with  her. 
The  unification  of  Germany  he  considered  a  grave  danger, 
and  he  strove  to  create  a  countervailing  state  system. 

72 


THE   DELEGATES 

To  the  execution  of  this  project  there  were  formidable 
difficuhies.  For  one  thing,  none  of  the  peoples  in  ques- 
tion was  distinctly  anti-Gemian.  Each  one  was  for  it- 
self. Again,  they  were  not  particularly  enamoured  of  one 
another,  nor  were  their  interests  always  concordant,  and 
to  constrain  them  by  force  to  unite  would  have  been  not 
to  prevent  but  to  cause  future  wars.  A  Danubian  federa- 
tion— the  concrete  shape  imagined  for  this  new  bulwark 
of  European  peace — did  not  commend  itself  to  the  Italians, 
who  had  their  own  reasons  for  their  opposition  besides 
the  Wilsonian  doctrine,  which  they  invoked.  If  it  be 
true,  Signor  Tittoni  argues,  that  Austria  does  not  desire 
to  be  amalgamated  with  Germany,  why  not  allow  her  to 
exercise  the  right  of  self-determination  accorded  to  other 
peoples?  M.  Tardieu,  on  the  other  hand,  not  content 
with  the  prohibition  to  Germany  to  unite  with  Austria, 
proposed  ^  that  in  the  treaty  with  Austria  this  coun- 
try should  be  obliged  to  repress  the  unionist  movement 
in  the  population.  This  amendment  was  inveighed 
against  by  the  Italian  delegation  in  the  name  of  every 
principle  professed  and  transgressed  by  the  world-mending 
Powers.  Even  from  the  French  point  of  view  he  de- 
clared it  perilous,  inasmuch  as  there  was,  and  could  be, 
no  guarantee  that  a  Danubian  confederation  would  not 
become  a  tool  in  Germany's  hands.  , 

Two  things  struck  me  as  characteristic  of  the  principal  i 
plenipotentiaries :  as  a  rule,  they  eschewed  first-rate  merl  j    . 
as  fellow-workers,  one  integer  and  several  zeros  being  theii^  I    i 
favorite  formula,  and  they  took  no  account  of  the  flight  \ 
of  time,  planning  as  though  an  eternity^ere  before  tHem  f 
alicrtlien  suddenly  improvising  as  though  afraid  of  being  ; 
late  for  a  train  or  a  steamer.     These  peculiarities  were 
baleful.     The  lesser  states,  having  mainly  first-class  men 
to  represent  them,  illustrated  the  law  of  compensation, 

^  At  the  end  of  August,  1919. 

73 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

which  assigned  many  mediocrities  to  the  Great  Powers. 
The  former  were  also  the  most  strenuous  toilers,  for  their 
task  bristled  with  difficulties  and  abounded  in  startling 
surprises,  and  its  accomplishment  depended  on  the  will  of 
others.  Time  and  again  they  went  over  the  ground  with 
infinite  care,  counting  and  gaging  the  obstacles  in  their 
way,  devising  means  to  overcome  them,  and  rehearsing 
the  effort  in  advance.  So  much  stress  had  been  laid  dur- 
ing the  war  on  psychology,  and  such  far-reaching  conse- 
quences were  being  drawn  from  the  Germans'  lack  of  it, 
that  these  public  men  made  its  cultivation  their  personal 
care.  Hence,  besides  tracing  large-scale  maps  of  prov- 
inces and  comprehensive  maps  ^  of  the  countries  to  be 
reconstituted,  and  ransacking  history  for  arguments  and 
precedents,  they  conscientiously  ascertained  the  idiosyn- 
crasies of  their  judges,  in  order  to  choose  the  surest  ways 
to  impress,  convince,  or  persuade  them.  And  it  was 
instructive  to  see  them  try  their  hand  at  this  new  game. 

One  and  all  gave  assent  to  the  axiom  that  moderation 
would  impress  the  arbiters  more  favorably  than  greed, 
but  not  all  of  them  wielded  sufficient  self-command  to 
act  upon  it.  The  more  resourceful  delegates,  whose  tasks 
were  especially  redoubtable  because  they  had  to  demand 
large  provinces  coveted  by  others,  prepared  the  ground 
by  visiting  personally  some  of  the  more  influential  arbiters 
before  these  were  officially  appointed,  forcibly  laying  their 
cases  before  them  and  praying  for  their  advice.  In  reality 
they  were  striving  to  teach  them  elementary  geography, 
history,  and  politics.  The  Ulysses  of  the  Conference, 
M.  Venizelos,  first  pilgrimaged  to  London,  saying :  "  If  the 
Foreign  Office  is  with  Greece,  what  matters  it  who  is 
against  her."     He  hastened  to  call  on  President  Wilson 


^  One  delegate  from  a  poor  and  friendless  country  had  to  take  the  maps 
of  a  rival  state  and  retouch  them  in  accordance  with  the  ethnographical 
data  which  he  considered  alone  correct. 

74 


THE  DELEGATES 

as  soon  as  that  statesman  arrived  in  Europe,  and,  to  the 
surprise  of  many,  the  two  remained  a  long  time  closeted 
together.  "Whatever  did  you  talk  about?"  asked  a  col- 
league of  the  Greek  Premier.  * '  How  did  you  keep  Wilson 
interested  in  your  national  claims  all  that  time?  You 
must  have — "  "Oh  no,"  interrupted  the  modest 
statesman.  "I  disposed  of  our  claims  succinctly  enough. 
A  matter  of  two  minutes.  Not  more.  I  asked  him  to 
dispense  me  from  taking  up  his  time  with  such  complicated 
issues  which  he  and  his  colleagues  would  have  ample  op- 
portunity for  studying.  The  rest  of  the  time  I  was  getting 
him  to  give  me  the  benefit  of  his  familiarity  with  the  sub- 
ject of  the  League  of  Nations.  And  he  was  good  enough 
to  enumerate  the  reasons  why  it  should  be  realized,  and 
the  way  in  which  it  must  be  worked.  I  was  greatly  im- 
pressed by  what  he  said."  "Just  fancy!"  exclaimed  a 
colleague,  "wasting  all  that  time  in  talking  about  a  scheme 
which  will  never  come  to  anything!"  But  M.  Venizelos 
knew  that  the  time  was  not  misspent.  President  Wilson 
was  at  first  nowise  disposed  to  lend  a  favorable  ear  to 
the  claims  of  Greece,  which  he  thought  exorbitant,  and 
down  to  the  very  last  he  gave  his  support  to  Bulgaria 
against  Greece  whole-heartedly.  The  Cretan  statesman 
passed  many  an  hour  of  doubt  and  misgiving  before  he 
came  within  sight  of  his  goal.  But  he  contrived  to  win 
the  President  over  to  his  way  of  envisaging  many  Oriental 
questions.     He  is  a  past-master  in  practical  psychology. 

The  first  experiments  of  M.  Venizelos,  however,  were 
not  wholly  encouraging.  For  all  the  care  he  lavished  on 
the  chief  luminaries  of  the  Conference  seemingly  went  to 
supplement  their  education  and  fill  up  a  few  of  the  geo- 
graphical, historical,  philological,  ethnological,  and  politi- 
cal gaps  in  their  early  instruction  rather  than  to  guide 
them  in  their  concrete  decisions,  which  it  was  expected 
would  be  always  left  to  the  "commissions  of  experts." 

75 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

But  the  fruit  which  took  long  to  mature  ripened  at  last, 
and  Greece  had  many  of  her  claims  allowed.  Thus  in 
reorganizing  the  communities  of  the  world  the  personal 
factor  played  a  predominant  part.  Venizelos  was,  so  to 
say,  a  fixed  star  in  the  firmament,  and  his  light  burned 
bright  through  every  rift  in  the  clouds.  His  moderation 
astonished  friends  and  opponents.  Every  one  admired 
his  expose  of  his  case  as  a  masterpiece.  His  statesman-like 
setting,  in  perspective,  the  readiness  with  which  he  put 
himself  in  the  place  of  his  competitor  and  struck  up  a  fair 
compromise,  endeared  him  to  many,  and  his  praises  were 
in  every  one's  mouth.  His  most  critical  hour — it  lasted 
for  months — struck  when  he  found  himself  struggling  with 
the  President  of  the  United  States,  who  was  for  refusing 
the  coast  of  Thrace  to  Greece  and  bestowing  it  on  Bul- 
garia.    But  with  that  dispute  I  deal  in  another  place. 

Of  Italy's  two  plenipotentiaries  during  the  first  five 
months  one  was  the  most  supple  and  the  other  the  most 
inflexible  of  her  statesmen,  Signor  Orlando  and  Baron 
Sonnino.  If  her  case  was  presented  to  the  Conference 
with  less  force  than  was  attainable,  the  reasons  are  obvi- 
ous. Her  delegates  had  a  formal  treaty  on  which  they 
relied ;  to  the  attitude  of  their  country  from  the  outbreak 
of  the  war  to  its  finish  they  rightly  ascribed  the  possibility 
of  the  Allies'  victory,  and  they  expected  to  see  this  price- 
less service  recognized  practically ;  ^the  moderation  and 
suppleness  of  Signor  Orlandd/were  neutralized  by  the  un- 
compromising attitude  of  Baron  Sonnino,  and,  lastly,  the 
gaze  of  both  statesmen  was  fixed  upon  territorial  ques- 
tions and  sentimental  aspirations  to  the  neglect  of  eco- 
nomic interests  vital  to  the  state — in  other  words,  they 
beheld  the  issues  in  wrong  perspective.  But  one  of  the 
most  popular  figures  among  the  delegates  was  Signor 
Orlando, |ilvhose  eloquence  and  imagination  gave  him  ad- 
vantages ivhich  would  have  been  increased  a  hundredfold 

76 


THE  DELEGATES 

if  he  might  have  employed  his  native  language  in  the  con- 
clave.^ For  he  certainly  displayed  resoiircefulncss,  humor, 
a  historic  sense,  and  the  gift_ofjnolding  the  wills-oi  mon. 
But  he  wa^  greatly  hampered.^  Some  of  his  countrymen 
alleged  that  Baron  Sonnino  was  his  evil  genius.  One  of 
the  many  sayings  attributed  to  him  during  the  Conference 
turned  upon  the  quarrels  of  some  of  the  smaller  peoples 
among  themselves.  "They  are,"  the  Premier  said,  "like 
a  lot  of  hens  being  held  by  the  feet  and  carried  to  market. 
Although  all  doomed  to  the  same  fate,  they  contrive  to 
fight  one  another  while  awaiting  it." 

After  the  fall  of  Orlando's  Cabinet,  M.  Tittoni  repaired 
to  Paris  as  Italy's  chief  delegate.  His  reputation  as  one 
of  Europe's  principal  statesmen  was  already  firmly  estab- 
lished; he  had  spent  several  years  in  Paris  as  Ambassa- 
dor, and  he  and  the  late  Di  San  Giuliano  and  Giolitti  were 
the  men  who  broke  with  the  Central  Empires  when  these 
were  about  to  precipitate  the  World  War.  In  French 
nationalist  circles  Signor  Tittoni  had  long  been  under  a 
cloud,  as  the  man  of  pro-German  leanings.  The  suspicion 
— for  it  was  nothing  more — was  unfounded.  On  the  con- 
trary, IM.  Tittoni  is  known  to  have  gone  with  the  Allies 
to  the  utmost  length  consistent  with  his  sense  of  duty 
to  his  own  country.  To  my  knowledge  he  once  gave 
advice  which  his  Italian  colleagues  and  political  friends 
and  adversaries  now  bitterly  regret  was  disregarded. 
The  nature  of  that  counsel  will  one  day  be  disclosed.  .  .  . 

Of  Japan's  delegates,  the  Marquis  Saionji  and  Baron 
Makino,  little  need  be  said,  seeing  that  their  qualifications 
for  their  task  were  demonstrated  by  the  results.  Mainly 
to  statesmanship  and  skilful  maneuvering  Japan  is 
indebted  for  her  success  at  the  Paris  Conference,  where 
her  cause  was  referred  by  Mr.  Lloyd  George  and  M. 
Clemenceau  to  Mr.  Wilson  to  deal  with.  The  behavior 
of  her  representatives  was  an  illuminating  object-lesson 

77 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

in  the  worth  of  psychological  tactics  in  practical  politics. 
They  hardly  ever  appeared  in  the  footlights,  remained 
constantly  silent  and  observant,  and  were  almost  ignored 
by  the  press.  But  they  kept  their  eyes  fixed  on  the  goal. 
!  Their  program  was  simple.  Amid  the  flitting  shadows 
'of  political  events  they  marched  together  with  the  Allies, 
until  these  disagreed  among  themselves,  and  then  they 
[voted  with  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States.  Occa- 
sionally they  went  farther  and  proposed  measures  for 
the  lesser  states  which  Britain  framed,  but  desired  to 
second  rather  than  propose.  Japan,  at  the  Conference, 
was  a  stanch  collaborator  of  the  two  English-speaking 
principals  until  her  own  opportunity  came,  and  then  she 
threw  all  her  hoarded  energies  into  her  cause,  and  by 
her  firm  resolve  dispelled  any  opposition  that  Mr.  Wilson 
\  may  have  intended  to  offer.  One  of  the  most  striking 
episodes  of  the  Conference  was  the  swift,  silent,  and  vSuc- 
f  cessful  campaign  by  which  Japan  had  her  secret  treaty 
i  with  China  hall-marked  by  the  puritanical  President  of 
the  United  States,  whose  sense  of  morality  could  not 
brook  the  secret  treaties  concluded  by  Italy  and  Rumania 
with  the  Greater  and  Greatest  Powers  of  Europe.  Again, 
it  was  with  statesman-like  sagacity  that  the  Japanese 
judged  the  Russian  situation  and  made  the  best  of  it — 
first,  shortly  before  the  invitation  to  Prinkipo,  and,  later, 
before  the  celebrated  eight  questions  were  submitted  to 
Admiral  Kolchak.  I  was  especially  struck  by  an  occur- 
rence, trivial  in  appearance,  which  demonstrated  the 
weight  which  they  rightly  attached  to  the  psychological 
side  of  politics.  Everybody  in  Paris  remarked,  and  many 
vainly  complained  of,  the  indifference,  or  rather,  unfriend- 
liness, of  which  Russians  were  the  innocent  victims. 
Among  the  Allied  troops  who  marched  under  the  Arc  de 
Triomphe  on  July  14th  there  were  Rumanians,  Greeks, 
Portuguese,  and  Indians,  but  not  a  single  Russian.    A 

78 


THE  DELEGATES 

Russian  general  drove  about  in  the  forest  of  flags  and 
banners  that  day  looking  eagerly  for  symbols  of  his  own 
country,  but  for  hours  the  quest  was  fruitless.  At  last, 
when  passing  the  Japanese  Embassy,  he  perceived,  to  his 
delight,  an  enormous  Russian  flag  waving  majestically 
in  the  breeze,  side  by  side  with  that  of  Nippon.  "I  shed 
tears  of  joy,"  he  told  his  friend  that  evening,  "and  I 
vowed  that  neither  I  nor  my  country  would  ever  forget 
this  touching  mark  of  friendship." 

Japanese  public  opinion  criticized  severely  the  failure 
of  their  delegates  to  obtain  recognition  of  the  equality 
of  races  or  nations.  This  judgment  seems  unjust,  for 
nothing  that  they  could  have  done  or  said  would  have 
wrung  from  Air.  Wilson  and  Mr.  Hughes  their  assent 
to  the  doctrine,  nor,  if  they  had  been  induced  to  proclaim 
it,  would  it  have  been  practically  applied. 

In  general,  the  lawyers  were  the  most  successful  in 
stating  their  cases.  But  one  of  the  delegates  of  the  lesser 
states  who  made  the  deepest  impression  on  those  of  the 
greater  was  not  a  member  of  the  bar.  The  head  of  the 
Polish  delegation,  Roman  Dmowski,  a  picturesque, 
forcible  speaker,  a  close  debater  and  resourceful  pleader, 
who  is  never  at  a  loss  for  an  image,  a  comparison,  an 
argtimcnttim  ad  hominem,  or  a  repartee,  actually  won 
over  some  of  the  arbiters  who  had  at  first  leaned  toward 
his  opponents — a  noteworthy  feat  if  one  realizes  all  that 
it  meant  in  an  assembly  where  potent  influences  were 
working  against  some  of  the  demands  of  resuscitated 
Poland.  His  speech  in  September  on  the  future  of  eastern 
Galicia  was  a  veritable  masterpiece. 

M.  Dmowski  appeared  at  the  Conference  under  all  the 
disadvantages  that  could  be  heaped  upon  a  man  who  has 
incurred  the  resentment  of  the  most  powerful  interna- 
tional body  of  modern  times.  He  had  the  misfortune  to 
have  the  Jews  of  the  world  as  his  adversaries.     His  Polish 

79 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

friends  explained  this  hostility  as  follows.  His  ardent 
nationalist  sentiments  placed  him  in  antagonism  to  every 
movement  that  ran  counter  to  the  progress  of  his  country 
on  nationalist  lines.  For  he  is  above  all  things  a  Pole 
and  a  patriot.  And  as  the  Hebrew  population  of  Poland, 
disbelieving  in  the  resurrection  of  that  nation,  had  long 
since  struck  up  a  cordial  understanding  with  the  states 
that  held  it  in  bondage,  the  gifted  author  of  a  book  on  the 
Foundations  of  Nationalism,  which  went  through  four 
editions,  was  regarded  by  the  Hebrew  elements  of  the 
population  as  an  irreconcilable  enemy.  In  truth,  he 
was  only  the  leader  of  a  movement  that  was  a  historical 
necessity.  One  of  the  theses  of  the  work  was  the  neces- 
sity of  cultivating  an  anti-German  spirit  in  Poland  as 
the  only  antidote  against  the  Teuton  virus  introduced  from 
Berlin  through  economic  and  other  channels.  And  as  the 
Polish  Jews,  whose  idiom  is  a  corrupted  German  dialect 
and  whose  leanings  are  often  Teutonic,  felt  that  the 
attack  upon  the  whole  was  an  attack  on  the  part,  they 
anathematized  the  author  and  held  him  up  to  universal 
obloquy.  And  there  has  been  no  reconciliation  ever 
since.  In  the  United  States,  where  the  Jewish  community 
is  numerous  and  influential,  M.  Dmowski  found  spokes 
in  his  wheel  at  every  stage  of  his  journey,  and  in  Paris, 
too,  he  had  to  full-front  a  tremendous  opposition,  open 
and  covert.  Whatever  unbiased^  people  may  think  of 
this  explanation  and  of  his  hostility  to  the  Germans  and 
their  agents,  Roman  Dmowsld  deservedly  enjoys  the 
reputation  of  a  straightforward  and  loyal  fighter  for  his 
country's  cause,  a  man  who  scorns  underhand  machina- 
tions and  proclaims  aloud — perhaps  too  frankly — the 
principles  for  which  he  is  fighting.  Polish  Jews  who 
appeared  in  Paris,  some  of  them  his  bitterest  antagonists, 
recognized  the  chivalrous  way  in  which  he  conducts  his 
electoral  and  other  campaigns.    Among  thedelegates  his 

80 


THE  DELEGATES 

practical  acquaintanceship  with  East  European  politics 
entitled  him  to  high  rank.  For  he  knows  the  world 
better  than  any  living  statesman,  having  traveled  over 
Europe,  Asia,  and  America.  He  undertook  and  success- 
fully accomplished  a  delicate  mission  in  the  Far  East 
in  the  year  1905,  rendering  valuable  services  to  his 
country  and  to  the  cause  of  civilization. 

"M.  Dmowski's  activity,"  his  friends  further  assert, 
"is  impassioned  and  unselfish.  The  ambition  that  m- 
spires  and  nerves  him  is  not  of  the  personal  sort,  nor  is 
his  patriotism  a  ladder  leading  to  place  and  power. 
Polish  patriotism  occupies  a  category  apart  from  that  of 
other  European  peoples,  and  M.  Dmowski  has  typified 
it  with  rare  fidelity  and  completeness.  If  Wilsonianism 
had  been  realized,  Polish  nationalism  might  have  become 
an  anachronism.  To-day  it  is  a  large  factor  in  European 
polities  and  is  little  understood  in  the  West.  M.  Dmow- 
ski lives  for  his  country.  Her  interests  absorb  his 
energies.  He  would  probably  agree  with  the  historian 
Paolo  Sarpi,  who  said,  'Let  us  be  Venetians  first  and 
Christians  after.'  Of  the  two  widely  divergent  currents 
into  which  the  main  stream  of  political  thought  and 
sentiment  throughout  the  world  is  fast  dividing  itself, 
M.  Dmowski  moves  with  the  national  away  from  the 
international  championed  by  Mr.  Wilson.  The  fre- 
quency with  which  the  leading  spirits  of  Bolshevism  turn 
out  to  be  Jews — to  the  dismay  and  disgust  of  the  bulk  of 
their  own  community — and  the  ingenuity  they  displayed 
in  spreading  their  corrosive  tenets  in  Poland  may  not 
have  been  without  effect  upon  the  energy  of  M.  Dmow- 
ski's attitude  toward  the  demand  of  the  Polish  Jews  to  be 
placed  in  the  privileged  position  of  wards  of  the  League 
of  Nations.  -  But  the  principle  of  the  protection  of  minority 
— Jewish  or  Gentile — is  assailable  on  grounds  which  have 
nothing  to  do  with  race  or  religion."     Some  of  the  most 

8x 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

interesting  and  characteristic  incidents  at  the  Conference 
had  the  PoHsh  statesman  for  their  principal  actor,  and  to 
him  Poland  owes  some  of  the  most  solid  and  enduring  bene- 
fits conferred  on  her  at  the  Conference. 

Of  a  different  temper  is  M.  Paderewski,  who  appeared 
in  Paris  to  plead  his  country's  cause  at  a  later  stage  of  the 
labors  of  the  Conference.  This  eminent  artist's  energies 
were  all  blended  into  one  harmonious  whole,  so  that  his 
meetings  with  the  great  plenipotentiaries  were  never  dis- 
turbed by  a  jamng  note.  As  soon  as  it  was  borne  in 
upon  him  that  their  decisions  were  as  irrevocable  as  de- 
crees of  Fate,  he  bowed  to  them  and  treated  the  authors 
as  Olympians  who  had  no  choice  but  to  utter  the  stem 
fiat.  Even  when  called  upon  to  accept  the  obnoxious 
clause  protecting  religious  and  ethnic  minorities  against 
which  his  colleague  had  vainly  fought,  M.  Paderewski 
sunk  political  passion  in  reason  and  attuned  himself  to 
the  helpful  role  of  harmonizer.  He  held  that  it  would 
have  been  worse  than  useless  to  do  otherwise.  He  was 
grieved  that  his  country  must  acquiesce  in  that  decree, 
he  regretted  intensely  the  necessity  which  constrained  such 
proven  friends  of  Poland  as  the  Four  to  pass  what  he  con- 
sidered a  severe  sentence  on  her;  but  he  resigned  himself 
gracefully  to  the  inevitable  and  thanked  Fate's  execu- 
tioners for  their  personal  sympathy.  This  attitude 
evoked  praise  and  admiration  from  Messrs.  Lloyd  George 
and  Wilson,  and  the  atmosphere  of  the  conclave  seemed 
permeated  with  a  spirit  that  induced  calm  satisfaction 
and  the  joy  of  elevated  thoughts.  M.  Paderewski  made  a 
deep  and  favorable  impression  on  the  Supreme  Council. 

Belgium  sent  her  most  brilliant  parliamentarian,  M. 
Hymans,  as  first  plenipotentiary  to  the  Conference.  He 
was  assisted  by  the  chief  of  the  Socialist  party,  M.  Van- 
dcrvelde,  and  by  an  eminent  authority  on  international 
law,  M,  Van  den  Ileuvcl.     But  for  reasons  which  elude 

82 


THE  DELECJATES 

analysis,  none  of  the  three  delegates  hit  it  ofT  with  the 
duumvirate  who  were  spinning  the  threads  of  the  world's 
destinies.  M.  Hymans,  however,  by  his  warmth,  sin- 
cerity, and  courage  imi)resscd  the  representatives  of  the 
lesser  states,  won  their  confidence,  became  their  natural 
spokesman,  and  blazed  out  against  all  attempts — and 
they  were  numerous  and  deliberate — to  ignore  their 
existence.  It  was  he  who  by  his  direct  and  eloquent 
protest  took  M.  Clemenceau  off  his  guard  and  elicited 
the  amazing  utterance  that  the  Powers  which  could 
put  twelve  million  soldiers  in  the  field  were  the 
world's  natural  arbiters.  In  this  way  he  cleared  the 
atmosphere  of  the  distorting  mists  of  catchwords  and 
shibboleths. 

How  decisive  a  role  internal  politics  played  in  the 
designation  of  plenipotentiaries  to  the  Conference  was 
shown  with  exceptional  clearness  in  the  case  of  Rumania. 
That  country  had  no  legislature.  The  Constituent 
Assembly,  which  had  been  dissolved  owing  to  the  German 
invasion,  was  followed  by  no  fresh  elections.  The  King, 
with  whom  the  initiative  thus  rested,  had  reappointed 
M.  Bratiano  Chief  of  the  Government,  and  ]\I.  Bratiano 
was  naturally  desirous  of  associating  his  own  historic 
name  with  the  aggrandizement  of  his  country.  But  he 
also  desired  to  secure  the  services  of  his  political  rival, 
M.  Take  Jonescu,  whose  reputation  as  a  far-seeing  states- 
man and  as  a  successful  negotiator  is  world-wide.  Among 
his  qualifications  are  an  acquaintanceship  with  European 
countries  and  their  affairs  and  a  rare  facility  for  give  and 
take  which  is  of  the  essence  of  international  politics.  He 
can  assume  the  initiative  in  pourparlers,  however  uncom- 
promising the  outlook;  frame  plausible  proposals;  con- 
ciliate his  opponents  by  showing  how  thoroughly  he 
understands  and  appreciates  their  point  of  view,  and  by 
these  means  he  has  often  worked  out  seemingly  hopeless 

7  83 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

negotiations  to  a  satisfactory  issue.  M.  Clemenceau 
wrote  of  him,  "C'est  un  grand  Europeen."  ^ 

M.  Bratiano's  bid  for  the  services  of  his  eminent  op- 
ponent was  coupled  with  the  offer  of  certain  portfoHos  in 
the  Cabinet  to  M.  Jonescu  and  to  a  number  of  his  parlia- 
mentary supporters.  While  negotiations  were  slowly  pro- 
ceeding by  telegraph,  M.  Jonescu,  who  had  already  taken 
up  his  abode  in  Paris,  was  assiduously  weaving  his  plans. 
He  began  by  assuming  what  everybody  knew,  that  the 
Powers  would  refuse  to  honor  the  secret  treaty  with 
France,  Britain,  and  Russia,  which  assigned  to  Rumania 
all  the  territories  to  which  she  had  laid  claim,  and  he  pro- 
posed first  striking  up  a  compromise  with  the  other  inter- 
ested states,  then  compacting  Rumania,  Jugoslavia, 
Poland,  Czechoslovakia,  and  Greece  into  a  solid  block, 
and  asking  the  Powers  to  approve  and  ratify  the  new 
league.  Truly  it  was  a  genial  conception  worthy  of  a 
broad-minded  statesman.  It  aimed  at  a  durable  peace 
based  on  what  he  considered  a  fair  settlement  of  claims 
satisfactory  to  all,  and  it  would  have  lightened  the  burden 
of  the  Big  Four.  But  whether  it  could  have  been  realized 
by  peoples  moved  by  turbid  passions  and  represented  by 
trustees,  some  of  whom  were  avowedly  afraid  to  relin- 
quish claims  vdiich  they  knew  to  be  exorbitant,  may  well 
be  doubted. 

But  the  issue  was  never  put  to  the  test.  The  two 
statesmen  failed  to  agree  on  the  Cabinet  question;  M. 
Jonescu  "kept  aloof  from  office,  and  the  post  of  second 
dekgate  fell  to  Rumania's  greatest  diplomatist  and -phil- 
ologist, M\  Mishu,  who  had  for  years  admirably  repre- 
sented his  country  as  Minister  in  the  British  capital. 
From  the  outset  M.  Bratiano's  position  was  unenviable, 
because  he  based  his  country's  case  on  the  claims  of  the 
secret  treaty,   and  to  I\Tr.   Wilson  every  secret  treaty 

^  L'Homme  Enchaine,  December  14,  1914. 

84 


THE  DELEGATES 

which  he  could  effectually  veto  was  anathema.  Between 
the  two  men,  in  lieu  of  a  bond  of  union,  there  was  only  a 
strong  force  of  mutual  repulsion,  which  kept  them  per- 
manently apart.  They  moved  on  different  planes,  spoke 
different  languages,  and  Rumania,  in  the  person  of  her 
delegates,  was  treated  like  Cinderella  by  her  stepmother. 
The  Council  of  Three  kept  them  systematically  in  the 
dark  about  matters  which  it  concerned  them  to  know, 
negotiated  over  their  heads,  transmitted  to  Bucharest 
injunctions  which  only  they  were  competent  to  receive, 
insisted  on  their  compromising  to  accept  future  decrees 
of  the  Conference  without  an  inkling  as  to  their  nature, 
and  on  their  admitting  the  right  of  an  alien  institution — 
the  League  of  Nations — to  intervene  in  favor  of  minori- 
ties against  the  legally  constituted  government  of  the 
country.  M.  Bratiano,  who  in  a  trenchant  speech  in- 
veighed against  these  claims  of  the  Great  Powers  to  take 
the  governance  of  Europe  into  their  own  hands,  withdrew 
from  the  Conference  and  laid  his  resignation  in  the  hands 
of  the  King. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  debaters  in  this  singular 
parliament,  where  self-satisfied  ignorance  and  dullness  of 
apprehension  were  so  hard  to  pierce,  was  the  youthful 
envoy  of  the  Czechoslovaks,  M.  Benes.  This  politician, 
who  before  the  Conference  came  to  an  end  was  offered 
the  honorable  task  of  forming  a  new  Cabinet,  which  he 
wisely  declined,  displayed  a  masterly  grasp  of  Continental 
politics  and  a  rare  gift  of  identifying  his  country's  aspira- 
tions with  the  postulates  of  a  settled  peace.  A  systematic 
thinker,  he  made  a  point  of  understanding  his  case  at  the 
outset.  He  would  begin  his  expose  by  detaching  himself 
from  all  national  interests  and  starting  from  general  as- 
sumptions recognized  by  the  Olympians,  and  would  lead 
his  hearers  by  easy  stages  to  the  conclusions  which  he 
wished  them  to  draw  from  their  own  premises.    And  two 

85 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

of  them,  who  had  no  great  sympathy  with  his  thesis, 
assured  me  that  they  could  detect  no  logical  flaw  in  his 
argument.  Moderation  and  sincerity  were  the  virtues 
which  he  was  most  eager  to  exhibit,  and  they  were  un- 
questionably the  best  trump  cards  he  could  play.  Not 
only  had  he  a  firm  grasp  of  facts  and  arguments,  but  he 
displayed  a  sense  of  measure  and  open-mindedness  which 
enabled  him  to  implant  his  views  on  the  minds  of  his 
hearers. 

Armenia's  cause  found  a  forcible  and  suasive  pleader  in 
Boghos  Pasha,  whose  way  of  marshaling  arguments  in 
favor  of  a  contention  that  was  frowned  upon  by  many 
commanded  admiration.  The  Armenians  asked  for  a  vast 
stretch  of  territory  with  outlets  on  the  Black  Sea  and  the 
Mediterranean,  but  they  were  met  with  the  objections 
that  their  total  population  was  insignificant;  that  only 
in  one  province  were  they  in  a  majority,  and  that  their 
claim  to  Cilicia  clashed  with  one  of  the  reserved  rights  of 
France.  The  ice,  therefore,  was  somewhat  thin  in  parts, 
but  Boghos  Pasha  skated  over  it  gracefully.  His  descrip- 
tion of  the  Armenian  massacres  was  thrilling.  Altogether 
his  expose  was  a  masterpiece,  and  was  appreciated  by  Mr. 
Wilson  and  M.  Clemenceau. 

The  Jugoslav  delegates,  MM.  Vesnitch  and  Trumbitch, 
patriotic,  tenacious,  uncompromising,  had  an  early  oppor- 
tunity of  showing  the  stuff  of  which  they  were  made. 
When  they  were  told  that  the  Jugoslav  state  was  not  yet 
recognized  and  that  the  kingdom  of  Serbia  must  content 
itself  with  two  delegates,  they  lodged  an  indignant  protest 
against  both  decisions,  and  refused  to  appear  at  the  Con- 
ference unless  they  were  allowed  an  adequate  number  of 
representatives.  Thereupon  the  Great  Powers  compro- 
mised the  matter  by  according  them  three,  and  with 
stealthy  rage  they  submitted  to  the  refusal  of  recognition. 
They  were  not  again  heard  of  until  one  day  they  proposed 

86 


THE  DELEGATES 

that  their  dispute  with  Italy  about  Fiumc  and  the  Dal- 
matian coasc  should  be  solved  by  submitting  it  to  Presi- 
dent Wilson  for  arbitration.  The  expedient  was  original. 
President  Wilson,  people  remembered,  had  had  an  ani- 
mated talk  on  the  subject  with  the  Italian  Premier, 
Orlando,  and  it  was  known  that  he  had  set  his  face  against 
Italy's  claim  and  against  the  secret  treaty  that  recognized 
it.  Consequently  the  Serbs  were  running  no  risk  by  chal- 
lenging Signor  Orlando  to  lay  the  matter  before  the  Ameri- 
can delegate.  Whether,  all  things  considered,  it  was  a 
wise  move  to  make  has  been  questioned.  Anyhow,  the 
Italian  delegation  declined  the  suggestion  on  a  number 
of  grounds  w^hich  several  delegates  considered  convincing. 
The  Conference,  it  urged,  had  been  convoked  precisely 
for  the  purpose  of  hearing  and  settling  such  disputes  as 
theirs,  and  the  Conference  consisted,  not  of  one,  but  of 
many  delegates,  who  collectively  were  better  qualified  to 
deal  with  such  problems  than  any  one  man.  Europeans, 
too,  could  more  fully  appreciate  the  arguments,  and  the 
atmosphere  through  which  the  arguments  should  be  con- 
templated, than  the  eminent  American  idealist,  who  had 
more  than  once  had  to  modify  his  judgment  on  European 
matters.  Again,  to  remove  the  discussion  from  the  inter- 
national court  might  well  be  felt  as  a  slight  put  upon  the 
men  who  composed  it.  For  why  should  their  verdict  be 
less  worth  soliciting  than  that  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States?  True,  Italy's  delegates  were  themselves 
judges  in  that  tribunal,  but  the  question  to  be  tried  was 
not  a  matter  between  two  countries,  but  an  issue  of  much 
wider  import — namely,  what  frontiers  accorded  to  the 
embryonic  state  of  Jugoslavia  would  be  most  conducive 
to  the  world's  peace.  And  nobody,  they  held,  could  offer 
a  more  complete  or  trustworthy  answer  than  they  and 
their  European  colleagues,  who  were  conversant  with  all 
the  elements  of  the  problem.     Besides — but  this  objection 

87 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

was  not  expressly  formulated — had  not  Mr.  Wilson  already 
decided  against  Italy?  On  these  and  other  grounds,  then, 
they  decided  to  leave  the  matter  to  the  Conference.  It 
was  a  delicate  subject,  and  few  onlookers  cared  to  open 
their  minds  on  its  merits. 

Albania  was  represented  by  an  old  friend  of  mine,  the 
venerable  Turkhan  Pasha,  who  had  been  in  diplomacy 
ever  since  the  Congress  of  Berlin  in  the  'seventies  of  last 
century,  and  who  looked  like  a  modernized  Nestor.  I 
made  his  acquaintance  many  years  ago,  when  he  was 
Ambassador  of  Turkey  in  St.  Petersburg.  He  was  then 
a  favorite  everywhere  in  the  Russian  capital  as  a  con- 
scientious Ambassador,  a  charming  talker,  and  a  profes- 
sional peace-maker,  who  wished  well  to  everybody.  The 
Young  Turks  having  recalled  him  from  St.  Petersburg,  he 
soon  afterward  became  Grand  Vizier  to  the  Mbret  of 
Albania.  Far  resonant  events  removed  the  Mbret  from 
the  throne,  Turkhan  Pasha  from  the  Vizierate,  and  Al- 
bania from  the  society  of  nations,  and  I  next  found  my 
friend  in  Switzerland  ill  in  health,  eating  the  bitter  bread 
of  exile,  temporarily  isolated  from  the  world  of  politics 
and  waiting  for  something  to  turn  up.  A  few  years  more 
gave  the  Allies  an  unexpectedly  complete  victory  and 
brought  back  Turkhan  Pasha  to  the  outskirts  of  diplo- 
macy and  politics.  He  suddenly  made  his  appearance  at 
the  Paris  Conference  as  the  representative  of  Albania 
and  the  friend  of  Italy. 

Another  Albanian  friend  of  mine,  Essad  Pasha,  whose 
plans  for  the  regeneration  of  his  country  differed  widely 
from  those  of  Turkhan,  was  for  a  long  while  detained  in 
Saloniki.  By  dint  of  solicitations  and  protests,  he  at  last 
obtained  permission  to  repair  to  Paris  and  lay  his  views 
before  the  Conference,  where  he  had  a  curious  interview 
with  Mr.  Wilson.  The  President,  having  received  from 
Albanians  in  the  United  States  many  unsolicited  judg- 

88 


THE  DELEGATES 

ments  on  the  character  and  antecedents  of  Essad  Pasha, 
had  httle  faith  in  his  fitness  to  introduce  and  popularize 
democratic  institutions  in  Albania.  And  he  unburdened 
himself  of  these  doubts  to  friends,  who  diffused  the  news. 
The  Pasha  asked  for  an  audience,  and  by  dint  of  patience 
and  perseverance  his  prayer  was  heard.  Five  minutes 
before  the  appointed  hour  he  was  at  the  President's  house, 
accompanied  by  his  interpreter,  a  young  Albanian  named 
Stavro,  who  converses  freely  in  French,  Greek,  and  Turk- 
ish, besides  his  native  language.  But  while  in  the  ante- 
cham^ber  Essad,  remembering  that  the  American  Presi- 
dent speaks  nothing  but  pure  English,  suggested  that 
Stavro  should  drive  over  to  the  Hotel  Crillon  for  an  inter- 
preter to  translate  from  French.  Thereupon  one  of  the 
secretaries  stopped  him,  saying:  "Although  he  cannot 
speak  French,  the  President  understands  it,  so  that  a  sec- 
ond interpreter  will  be  unnecessary."  Essad  then  ad- 
dressed Mr.  Wilson  in  Albanian,  Stavro  translated  his 
words  into  French,  and  the  President  listened  in  silence. 
It  was  the  impression  of  those  in  the  room  that,  at  any 
rate,  Mr.  Wilson  understood  and  appreciated  the  gist  of 
the  Pasha's  sharp  criticism  of  Italy's  behavior.  But,  to 
be  on  the  safe  side,  the  President  requested  his  visitor  to 
set  down  on  paper  at  his  leisure  everything  he  had  said 
and  to  send  it  to  him.  v 

PRESIDENT   WILSON 

President  Wilson,  before  assuming  the  redoubtable  role 
of  world  arbiter,  was  hardly  more  than  a  name  in  Europe, 
and  it  was  not  a  synon^'-m  for  statecraft.  His  ethical 
objections  to  the  rule  of  Huerta  in  Mexico,  his  attempt  to 
engraft  jiemocratic  principles  thers^^nd  the  anarchy  that 
came  of  it  were  matters  of  history.  But  the  President  of 
the  nation  to  whose  unbounded  generosity  and  altruism 

89 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

the  world  owes  a  debt  of  gratitude  that  can  only  be 
acknowledged,  not  repaid,  deservedly  enjoyed  a  superla- 
tive measure  of  respect  from  his  foreign  colleagues,  and 
the  author  of  the  project  which  was  to  link  all  nations 
together  by  ties  of  moral  kinship  was  literally  idolized  by 
the  masses.  Never  has  it  fallen  to  my  lot  to  see  any 
mortal  so  enthusiastically,  so  spontaneously  welcomed  by 
the  dejected  peoples  of  the  universe.  His  most  casual 
utterances  were  caught  up  as  oracles.  He  occupied  a 
height  so  far  aloft  that  the  vicissitudes  of  everyday  life 
and  the  contingencies  of  politics  seemingly  could  not 
touch  him.  He  was  given  credit  for  a  rare  degree  of  self- 
lessness in  his  conceptions  and  actions  and  for  a  balance 
of  judgment  which  no  storms  of  passion  could  upset.  So 
far  as  one  could  judge  by  innumerable  symptoms,  Presi- 
dent Wilson  was  confronted  with  an  opportunity  for  good 
incomparably  vaster  than  had  ever  before  been  within 
the  reach  of  man. 

Soon  after  the  opening  of  the  Conference  the  shadowy 
outlines  of  his  portrait  began  to  fill  in,  slowly  at  first,  and 
before  three  months  had  passed  the  general  public  be- 
held it  fairly  complete,  with  many  of  its  natural  lights  and 
shades.  The  quality  of  an  active  politician  is  never  more 
clearly  brought  out  than  when,  raised  to  an  eminent  place, 
he  is  set  an  arduous  feat  in  sight  of  the  multitude.  Mr. 
Wilson's  task  was  manifestly  congenial  to  him,  for  it  was 
deliberately  chosen  by  himself,  and  it  comprised  the  most 
tremendous  problems  ever  tackled  by  man  bom  of  woman. 
The  means  by  which  he  set  to  work  to  solve  them  were 
startlingly  simple:  the  regeneration  of  the  human  race  was 
to  be  compassed  by  means  of  magisterial  edicts  secretly 
drafted  and  sternly  imposed  on  the  interested  peoples,  to- 
gether with  a  new  and  not  wholly  appropriate  nomenclature. 

In  his  own  country,  where  he  has  bitter  adversaries  as 
well  as  devoted  friends,  Mr.  Wilson  was  regarded  by  many 

90 


THE  DELEGATES 

V  ^  ^ 

as  a  composite  being  made  up  of  preacher,  teacner,  and 

politician/  To  these  diverse  elements  they  refer  the  fector 
and  unction,  the  dogmatic  tone,  and  the  practised-Shrcjiid- 
ness  that  marked  his  words  and  acts,  Independent  Amer- 
ican opinion  doubted  his  qualifications  to  be  a  leader.  As 
a  politician,  they  said,  he  had  always  followed^ the  crowd. 
He  had  swum  with  the  tide  of  public  sentiment  in  cardinal 
matters,  instead  of  stemming  or  canalizing  and  guiding  it. 
Deficient  in  courageous  initiative,  he  had  contented  him- 
self with  merely  executive  functions.  No  new  idea,  no 
fresh  policy,  was  associated  with  his  name.  His  singular 
attitude  on  the  Mexican  imbroglio  had  provoked  the 
sharp  criticism  even  of  friends  and  the  condemnation  of 
political  opponents.  His  utterances  during  the  first  stages 
of  the  World  War,  such  as  the  statement  that  the  American 
people  were  too  proud  to  fight  and  had  no  concern  with 
the  causes  and  objects  of  the  war,^  when  contrasted  with 
the  opposite  views  which  he  propounded  later  on,  were 
ascribed  to  quick  political  evolution — but  were  not  taken 
as  symptoms  of  a  settled  mind.  He  seemed  a  pacifist 
when  his  pride  revolted  at  the  idea  of  settling  any  intelli- 
gible question  by  an  appeal  to  violence,  and  a  semi- 
militarist  when,  having  in  his  own  opinion  created  a 
perfectly  safe  and  bloodless  peace  guarantee  in  the  shape 
of  the  League  of  Nations,  he  agreed  to  safeguard  it  by  a 
military  compact  which  sapped  its  foundation.  He  owed 
his  re-election  for  a  second  term  partl3%  it  was  alleged,  to 
the  belief  that  during  the  first  he  had  kept  his  countiy  out 
of  the  war  despite  the  endeavors  of  some  of  its  eminent 
leaders  to  bring  it  in ;  yet  when  firmly  seated  in  the  saddle, 
he  followed  the  leaders  whom  he  had  theretofore  with- 
stood and  obliged  the  nation  to  fight. 


'  "With  its  causes  and  objects  we  have  no  concern."  Speech  delivered 
by  Mr.  Wilson  before  the  League  to  Enforce  Peace  in  Washington  on  May 
24,  1916. 

91 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

As  chief  of  the  great  country,  his  domestic  critics  add, 
which  had  just  turned  victory's  scale  in  favor  of  the 
Allies,  Mr.  Wilson  saw  a  superb  opportunity  to  hitch  his 
wagon  to  a  star,  and  now  for  the  first  time  he  made  a 
determined  bid  for  the  leadership  of  the  world.  Here 
the  idealist  showed  himself  at  his  best.  But  by  the 
way  of  preparation  he  asked  the  nation  at  the  elections 
to  refuse  their  votes  to  his  political  opponents,  despite 
the  fact  that  they  were  loyally  supporting  his  policy, 
and  to  return  only  men  of  his  own  party,  and  in  order 
to  silence  their  misgivings  he  declared  that  to  elect 
Republican  Senators  would  be  to  repudiate  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  President  of  the  United  States  at  a  critical 
conjuncture.  This  was  urged  against  him  as  the  in- 
expiable sin.  The  electors,  however,  sent  his  political 
opjjonents  to  the  Senate,  whereupon  the  President  or- 
ganized his  historic  visit  to  Europe.  It  might  have  be- 
come a  turning-point  in  the  world's  history  had  he 
transformed  his  authority  and  prestige  into  the  driving- 
power  requisite  to  embody  his  beneficent  scheme.  But  he 
wasted  the  opportunity  for  lack  of  moral  courage.  Thus 
far  American  criticism.  But  the  peoples  of  Europe 
ignored  the  estimates  of  the  President  made  by  his  fellow- 
countrymen,  who,  as  such,  may  be  forgiven  for  failing  to 
appreciate  his  apostleship,  or  set  the  full  value  on  his 
humanitarian  strivings.  The  war-weary  masses  judged 
him  not  by  what  he  had  achieved  or  attempted  in  the  past, 
but  by  what  he  proposed  to  do  in  the  future.  And  measured 
by  this  standard,  his  spiritual  statue  grew  to  legendary 
proportions. 

Europe,  when  the  President  touched  its  shores,  was  as 
clay  ready  for  the  creative  potter.  Never  before  were  the 
nations  so  eager  to  follow  a  Moses  who  would  take  them 
to  the  long-promised  land  where  wars  are  prohibited  and 
blockades  unknown.     And  to  their  thinking  he  was  that 

92 


JHE  DELEGATES 

great  leader.  In  France  men  bowed  down  before  him 
with  awe  and  affection.  Labor  leaders  in  Paris  told  me 
that  they  shed  tears  of  joy  in  his  presence,  and  that  their 
comrades  would  go  through  fire  and  water  to  help  him  to 
realize  his  noble  schemes.*  To  the  working  classes  in 
Italy  his  name  was  a  heavenly  clarion  at  the  sound  of 
which  the  earth  would  be  renewed.  The  Germans  re- 
garded him  and  his  humane  doctrine  as  their  sheet-anchor 
of  safety.  The  fearless  Herr  Muchlon  said,  "If  President 
Wilson  were  to  address  the  Germans,  and  pronounce  a 
severe  sentence  upon  them,  they  would  accept  it  with 
resignation  and  without  a  murmur  and  set  to  work  at 
once."  In  German-Austria  his  fame  was  that  of  a  savior, 
and  the  mere  mention  of  his  name  brought  balm  to  the 
suffering  and  surcease  of  sorrow  to  the  afflicted.  A 
touching  instance  of  this  which  occurred  in  the  Austrian 
capital,  when  narrated  to  the  President,  moved  him  to 
tears.  There  were  some  five  or  six  thousand  Austrian 
children  in  the  hospitals  at  Vienna  who,  as  Christmas 
was  drawing  near,  were  sorely  in  need  of  medicaments 
and  much  else.  The  head  of  the  American  Red  Cross 
took  up  their  case  and  persuaded  the  Americans  in  France 
to  send  two  million  dollars'  worth  of  medicaments  to 
Vienna.  These  were  duly  despatched,  and  had  got  as 
far  as  Berne,  when  the  French  authorities,  having  got 
wind  of  the  matter,   protested  against  this  premature 

^  The  testimony  of  a  leading  French  press  organ  is  worth  reproducing 
here:  "La  situation  du  President  Wilson  dans  nos  d^mocraties  est  mag- 
nifique,  souveraine  et  extr^mement  perilleuse.  On  ne  connait  pas 
d'hommes,  dans  les  temps  contemporains,  ayant  eu  plus  d'autorite  et  de 
puissance;  la  popularite  lui  a  donne  ce  que  le  droit  divin  ne  conf(5rait  pas 
toujours  aux  monarques  hereditaires.  En  revanche  et  par  le  fait  du  choc 
en  retour,  sa  responsabilite  est  superieure  4  celle  du  prince  le  plus  absolu. 
S'il  r6ussit  a  organiser  le  monde  d'apr^s  ses  rSves,  sa  gloire  dominera  les 
plus  hautes  gloires;  mais  il  faut  dire  hardiment  que  s'il  echouait  il  plon- 
gerait  le  monde  dans  un  chaos  dont  le  bolchevisme  russe  ne  nous  offre 
qu'une  faible  image;  et  sa  responsabilite  devant  la  conscience  humaine 
depasscrait  ce  que  pcut  supporter  un  simple  mortel.  Redoutable  alterna- 
tive!"— Cf.  Lc  Figaro,  February  lo,  1919. 

93 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

assistance  to  infant  enemies  on  grounds  which  the  other 
Allies  had  to  recognize  as  technically  tenable,  and  the 
medicaments  were  ordered  back  to  France  from  Berne. 
Thereupon  Doctor  Ferries,  of  the  International  Red  Cross, 
became  wild  with  indignation  and  laid  the  matter  before 
the  Swiss  government,  which  undertook  to  send  some 
medicaments  to  the  children,  while  the  Americans  were 
endeavoring  to  move  the  French  to  allow  at  least  some  of 
the  remedies  to  go  through.  The  children  in  the  hospitals, 
when  told  that  they  must  w^ait,  were  bright  and  hopeful. 
"It  will  be  all  right,"  some  of  them  exclaimed.  "Wilson  is 
coming  soon,  and  he  will  bring  us  everything." 

Thus  Mr.  Wilson  had  become  a  transcendental  hero  to 
the  European  proletarians,  who  in  their  homely  way 
adjusted  his  mental  and  moral  attributes  to  their  own 
ideal  of  the  latter-day  Messiah.  His  legendary  figure, 
half  saint,  half  revolutionist,  emerged  from  the  transparent 
haze  of  faith,  yearning,  and  ignorance,  as  in  some  ecstatic 
vision.  In  spite  of  his  recorded  acts  and  utterances  the 
mythopeic  faculty  of  the  peoples  had  given  itself  free 
scope  and  created  a  messianic  democrat  destined  to  free 
the  lower  orders,  as  they  were  called,  in  each  state  from  the 
shackles  of  capitalism,  legalized  thraldom,  and  crushing 
taxation,  and  each  nation  from  sanguinary  warfare. 
Truly,  no  human  being  since  the  dawn  of  history  has  ever 
yet  been  favored  with  such  a  superb  opportunity.  Mr. 
Wilson  might  have  made  a  gallant  effort  to  lift  society 
out  of  the  deep  grooves  into  which  it  had  sunk,  and  dis- 
lodge the  secular  obstacles  to  the  enfranchisement  and 
transfiguration  of  the  human  race.  At  the  lowest  it  was 
open  to  him  to  become  the  center  of  a  countless  multitude, 
the  heart  of  their  hearts,  the  incarnation  of  their  noblest 
thought,  on  condition  that  he  scorned  the  prudential 
motives  of  politicians,  burst  through  the  barriers  of  the 
old  order,  and  deployed  all  his  energies  and  his  full  will- 

94 


THE   DELEGATES 

power  in  the  struggle  against  sordid  interests  and  dense 
prejudice.  But  he  was  cowed  by  obstacles  which  his  will 
lacked  the  strength  to  surmount,  and  instead  of  receiving 
his  promptings  from  the  everlasting  ideals  of  mankind 
and  the  inspiriting  audacities  of  his  own  highest  nature 
and  appealing  to  the  peoples  against  their  rulers,  he  felt 
constrained  in  the  very  interest  of  his  cause  to  haggle  and 
barter  with  the  Scribes  and  the  Pharisees,  and  ended  by 
recording  a  pitiful  answer  to  the  most  momentous  prob- 
lems couched  in  the  impoverished  phraseology  of  a 
political  party. 

Many  of  his  political  friends  had  advised  the  President 
not  to  visit  Europe  lest  the  vast  prestige  and  influence 
which  he  wielded  from  a  distance  should  dwindle  un- 
utilized on  close  contact  with  the  realists'  crowd.  Even 
the  war-god  Mars,  when  he  descended  into  the  ranks  of 
the  combatants  on  the  Trojan  side,  was  wounded  by  a 
Greek,  and,  screaming  with  pain,  scurried  back  to  Olympus 
with  paling  halo.  But  Mr.  Wilson  decided  to  preside  and 
to  direct  the  fashioning  of  his  project,  and  to  give  Europe 
the  benefit  of  his  advice.  He  explained  to  Congress  that 
he  had  expressed  the  ideals  of  the  country  for  which  its 
soldiers  had  consciously  fought,  had  had  them  accepted 
"as  the  substance  of  their  own  thoughts  and  purpose" 
by  the  statesmen  of  the  associated  governments,  and  now, 
he  concluded:  "I  owe  it  to  them  to  see  to  it,  in  so  far 
as  in  me  lies,  that  no  false  or  mistaken  interpretation  is 
put  upon  them,  and  no  possible  effort  omitted  to  realize 
them.  It  is  now  my  duty  to  play  my  full  part  in  making 
good  what  they  oft'ered  their  lives  and  blood  to  obtain. 
I  can  think  of  no  call  to  service  which  could  transcend 
this."  ^    No  intention  could  well  be  more  praiseworthy. 

Soon  after  the  George  Washington,  flying  the  presidential 

'  From  Mr.  Wilson's  address  to  Congress  read  on  December  2,  1918. 
Cf.  Tlie  Times,  December  4,  1918. 

95 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

flag,  had  steamed  out  of  the  Bay  on  her  way  to  Europe, 
the  United  Press  received  from  its  correspondent  on 
board,  who  was  attached  to  Mr.  Wilson's  person,  a  mes- 
sage which  invigorated  the  hopes  of  the  world  and 
evoked  warm  outpourings  of  the  seared  soul  of  suffering 
man  in  gratitude  toward  the  bringer  of  balm.  It  began 
thus :  "The  President  sails  for  Europe  to  uphold  American 
ideals,  and  literally  to  fight  for  his  Fourteen  Points.  The 
President,  at  the  Peace  Table,  will  insist  on  the  freedom  of 
the  seas  and  a  general  disarmament.  .  .  .  The  seas,  he 
holds,  ought  to  be  guarded  by  the  whole  world." 

Since  then  the  world  knows  what  to  think  of  the  literal 
fighting  at  the  Peace  Table.  The  freedom  of  the  seas 
was  never  as  much  as  alluded  to  at  the  Peace  Table,  for 
the  announcement  of  Mr.  Wilson's  militant  championship 
brought  him  a  wireless  message  from  London  to  the 
effect  that  that  proposal,  at  all  events,  must  be  struck 
out  of  his  program  if  he  wished  to  do  business  with 
Britain.  And  without  a  fight  or  a  remonstrance  the 
President  struck  it  out.  The  Fourteen  Points  were  not 
discussed  at  the  Conference.^  One  may  deplore,  but  one 
cannot  misunderstand,  what  happened.  Mr.  Wilson,  too, 
had  his  own  fixed  aim  to  attain :  intent  on  associating  his 
name  with  a  grandiose  humanitarian  monument,  he  was 
resolved  not  to  return  to  his  country  without  some  sort 
of  a  covenant  of  the  new  international  life.  He  could 
not  afford  to  go  home  empty-handed.  Therein  lay  his 
weakness  and  the  source  of  his  failure.  For  whenever  his 
attitude  toward  the  Great  Powers  was  taken  to  mean, 
"Unless  you  give  me  my  Covenant,  you  cannot  have  your 
Treaty,"  the  retort  was  ready:  "Without  our  Treaty 
there  will  be  no  Covenant." 

Like  Dejoces,  the  first  king  of  the  Medes,  who,  having 

^  Cf.  Secretary  Lansing's  evidence  before  the  Senate  Foreign  Relations 
Committee.     The  Chicago  Tribune,  Auj^'ust  2"],  1919. 

96 


THE  DELEGATES 

built  his  palace  at  Ecbatana,  sun-oiindcd  it  with  seven 
walls  and  permanently  withdrew  his  person  from  the 
gaze  of  his  subjects,  Mr.  Wilson  in  Paris  admitted  to  his 
presence  only  the  authorized  spokesmen  of  states  and 
causes,  and  not  all  of  these.  He  declined  to  receive 
persons  who  thought  they  had  a  claim  to  see  him,  and  he 
received  others  who  were  believed  to  have  none.  During 
his  sojourn  in  Paris  he  took  many  important  Russian 
affairs  in  hand  after  having  publicly  stated  that  no  peace 
could  be  stable  so  long  as  Russia  Was  torn  by  internal 
strife.  And  as  familiarity  with  Russian  conditions  was 
not  one  of  his  accomplishments,  he  presumably  needed 
advice  and  help  from  those  acquainted  with  them.  Now 
a  large  number  of  Russians,  representing  all  political 
parties  and  four  governments,  were  in  Paris  waiting  to  be 
consulted.  But  between  January  and  May  not  one  of 
them  was  ever  asked  for  information  or  counsel.  Nay, 
more,  those  who  respectfully  solicited  an  audience  were 
told  to  wait.  In  the  meanwhile  men  unacquainted  with 
the  countr>^  and  people  were  sent  by  Air.  Wilson  to  report 
on  the  situation,  and  to  begin  by  obtaining  the  terms  of 
an  acceptable  treaty  from  the  Bolshevik  government. 

The  first  plenipotentiary  of  one  of  the  principal  lesser 
states  was  for  months  refused  an  audience,  to  the  delight  of 
his  political  adversaries,  who  made  the  most  of  the 
circumstance  at  home.  An  eminent  diplomatist  who 
possessed  considerable  claims  to  be  vouchsafed  an  inter- 
view was  put  off  from  week  to  week,  until  at  last,  by  dint 
of  perseverance,  as  it  seemed  to  him,  the  President  con- 
sented to  see  him.  The  diplomatist,  pleased  at  his  suc- 
cess, informed  a  friend  that  the  following  Wednesday 
would  be  the  memorable  day.  "But  are  you  not 
aware,"  asked  the  friend,  "that  on  that  day  the  President 
will  be  on  the  high  seas  on  his  way  back  to  the  United 
States?"     He  was  not  aware  of  it.     But  when  he  learned 

97 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

that  the  audience  had  been  deHberately  fixed  for  a  day 
when  Mr.  Wilson  would  no  longer  be  in  France  he  felt 
aggrieved. 

In  Italy  the  President's  progress  was  a  veritable 
triumph.  Emperors  and  kings  had  roused  no  such 
enthusiasm.  One  might  fancy  him  a  deity  unexpectedly 
discovered  under  the  outward  appearance  of  a  mortal 
and  now  being  honored  as  the  god  that  he  was  by  ecstatic 
worshipers.  Everything  he  did  was  well  done,  every- 
thing he  said  was  nobly  conceived  and  worthy  of  being 
treasured  up.  In  these  dispositions  a  few  brief  months 
wrought  a  vast  difference. 

In  this  respect  an  instructive  comparison  might  be 
made  between  Tsar  Alexander  I  at  the  Vienna  Congress 
and  the  President  of  the  United  States  at  the  Conference 
of  Paris.  The  Russian  monarch  arrived  in  the  Austrian 
capital  with  the  halo  of  a  Moses  focusing  the  hopes  of  all 
the  peoples  of  Europe.  His  reputation  for  probity,  public 
spirit,  and  lofty  aspirations  had  won  for  him  the  good- 
will and  the  anticipatory  blessings  of  war-weary  nations. 
He,  too,  was  a  mystic,  believed  firmly  in  occult  influences, 
so  firmly  indeed  that  he  accepted  the  fitful  guidance  of 
an  ecstatic  lady  whose  intuition  was  supposed  to  transcend 
the  sagacity  of  professional  statesmen.  And  yet  the 
Holy  Alliance  was  the  supreme  outcome  of  his  endeavors, 
as  the  League  of  Nations  was  that  of  Mr.  Wilson's.  In 
lieu  of  universal  peace  all  eastern  Europe  was  still  warring 
and  revolting  in  September  and  the  general  outlook  was 
disquieting.  The  disheartening  effect  of  the  contrast 
between  the  promise  and  the  achievement  of  the  American 
statesman  was  felt  throughout  the  world.  But  Mr. 
Wilson  has  the  solace  to  know  that  people  hardly  ever 
reach  their  goal — though  they  sometimes  advance  fairly 
near  to  it.  They  either  die  on  the  way  or  else  it  changes 
or  they  do. 

98 


THE  DELEGATES 

It  was  doubtless  a  noble  ambition  that  moved  tnc 
Prime  IMinistcrs  of  the  Great  Powers  and  the  chief  of  the 
North  American  Republic  to  give  their  own  service  to 
the  Conference  as  heads  of  their  respective  missions. 
For  they  considered  themselves  to  be  the  best  equipped 
for  the  purpose,  and  they  were  certainly  free  from  such 
prejudices  as  professional  traditions  and  a  confusing 
knowledge  of  details  might  be  supposed  to  engender. 
But  in  almost  every  respect  it  was  a  grievous  mistake 
and  the  source  of  others  still  more  grievous.  True,  in 
his  own  particular  sphere  each  of  them  had  achieved 
what  is  nowadays  termed  greatness.  As  a  war  leader 
Mr.  Lloyd  George  had  been  hastily  classed  with  Marl- 
borough and  Chatham,  M.  Clemenceau  compared  to 
Danton,  and  Mr.  Wilson  set  apart  in  a  category  to  him- 
self. But  without  questioning  these  journalistic  certifi-  ' 
cates  of  fame  one  must  admit  that  all  three  plenipoten-  i 
tiaries  were  essentially  politicians,  old  parliamentary  \ 
hands,  and  therefore  expedient-mongers  whose  highest 
qualifications  for  their  own  profession  were  drawbacks 
which  unfitted  them  for  their  self-assumed  mission.  Of 
the  concrete  world  which  the^^  set  about  reforming  their 
knowledge  was  amazingly  vague.  "Frogs  in  the  pond," 
says  the  Japanese  proverb,  "know  naught  of  the  ocean." 
There  was,  of  course,  nothing  blameworthy  in  their 
unacquaintanceship  with  the  issues,  but  only  in  the  off- 
handedness  with  which  they  belittled  its  consequences. 
Had  they  been  conversant  with  the  subject  or  gifted  with 
deeper  insight,  many  of  the  things  which  seemed  particu- 
larly clear  to  them  would  have  struck  them  as  sheer 
inexplicable,  and  among  these  perhaps  their  own  leader- 
ship of  the  world-parliament. 

What  they  lacked,  however,  might  in  some  perceptible 
degree  have  been  supplied  by  enlisting  as  their  helpers 
men  more  happily  endowed  than  themselves.     But  they 
«  99 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

y  deliberately  chose  mediocrities.  It  is  a  mark  of  genial 
spirits  that  they  are  well  served,  but  the  plenipotentiaries 
of  the  Conference  were  not  characterized  by  it.  Away 
in  the  background  some  of  them  had  familiars  or  casual 
prompters  to  whose  counsels  they  were  wont  to  listen, 
but  many  of  the  adjoints  who  moved  in  the  limelight  of  the 
world-stage  were  gritless  and  pithless. 

As  the  heads  of  the  principal  governments  implicitly 
claimed  to  be  the  authorized  spokesmen  of  the  human  race 
and  endowed  with  unlimited  powers,  it  is  worth  noting 
that  this  claim  was  boldly  challenged  by  the  peoples' 
organs  in  the  press.  Nearly  all  the  journals  read  by  the 
masses  objected  from  the  first  to  the  dictatorship  of  the 
group  of  Premiers,  Mr.  Wilson  being  excepted.  "The 
modern  parasite,"  wrote  a  respectable  democratic  news- 
paper,^ "is  the  politician.  Of  all  the  privileged  beings 
who  have  ever  governed  us  he  is  the  worst.  In  that, 
however,  there  is  nothing  surprising  ...  he  is  not  only 
amoral,  but  incompetent  by  definition.  And  it  is  this 
empty-headed  individual  who  is  intrusted  with  the  task 
of  settling  problems  with  the  very  rudiments  of  which 
he  is  unacquainted."  Another  French  journal^  wrote: 
"In  truth  it  is  a  misfortune  that  the  leaders  of  the  Con- 
ference are  Cabinet  chiefs,  for  each  of  them  is  obsessed 
by  the  carking  cares  of  his  domestic  policy.  Besides,  the 
Paris  Conference  takes  on  the  likeness  of  a  lyrical  drama 
in  which  there  are  only  tenors.  Now  would  even  the 
most  beautiful  work  in  the  world  survive  this  excess  of 
beauties?" 

The  truth  as  revealed  by  subsequent  facts  would  seem 
to  be  that  each  of  the  plenipotentiaries  recognizing  parlia- 
mentary success  as  the  source  of  his  power  was  obsessed, 
by  his  own  political  problems  and  stimulated  by  his  own 

^  La  Democratic  Nouvelle,  May  27,  1919 
'Le  Figaro,  March  26,  1919. 

100 


THE  DELEGATES 

immediate  ends.  As  these  ends,  however  incompatible 
with  each  other,  were  beHeved  by  each  one  to  tend  toward 
the  general  object,  he  worked  zealously  for  their  attain- 
ment. The  consequences  are  notorious.  M.  Clemenceau 
made  France  the  hub  of  the  universe.  Mr.  Lloyd  George 
harbored  schemes  which  naturally  identified  the  welfare 
of  manlvind  with  the  hegemony  of  the  English-speaking 
races.  Signor  Orlando  was  inspired  by  the  "sacred 
egotism"  which  had  actuated  all  Italian  Cabinets  since 
Italy  entered  the  war,  and  President  Wilson  was  burning  \ 
to  associate  his  name  and  also  that  of  his  country  with 
the  vastest  and  noblest  enterprise  inscribed  in  the  annals 
of  history.  And  each  one  moved  over  his  own  favorite 
route  toward  his  own  goal.  It  was  an  apt  illustration 
of  the  Russian  fable  of  the  swan,  the  crab,  and  the  pike 
being  harnessed  together  in  order  to  remove  a  load. 
The  swan  flew  upward,  the  crab  crawled  backward,  the 
pike  made  with  all  haste  for  the  water,  and  the  load 
remained  where  it  was. 

A  lesser  but  also  a  serious  disadvantage  of  the  delega- 
tion of  government  chiefs  made  itself  felt  in  the  procedure. 
Embarrassing  delays  were  occasioned  by  the  unavoidable 
absences  of  the  principal  delegates  whom  pressure  of 
domestic  politics  called  to  their  respective  capitals,  as 
well  as  by  their  tactics,  and  their  colleagues  profited  by 
their  absence  for  the  sake  of  the  good  cause.  Thus  all 
Paris,  as  we  saw,  was  aware  that  the  European  chiefs, 
whose  faith  in  Wilsonian  orthodoxy  was  still  feeble  at  that 
time,  were  prepared  to  take  advantage  of  the  President's 
sojourn  in  Washington  to  speed  up  business  in  their  own 
sense  and  to  confront  him  on  his  return  with  accomplished 
facts.  But  when,  on  his  return,  he  beheld  their  handi- 
work he  scrapped  it,  and  a  considerable  loss  of  time  en- 
sued for  which  the  world  has  since  had  to  pay  very 
heavily. 

lor 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

Again,  when  Premier  Orlando  was  in  Rome  after  Mr. 
Wilson's  appeal  to  the  Italian  people,  a  series  of  measures 
was  passed  by  the  delegates  in  Paris  affecting  Italy, 
diminishing  her  importance  at  the  Conference,  and  modify- 
ing the  accepted  inter]3retation  of  the  Treaty  of  London. 
Some  of  these  decisions  had  to  be  canceled  when  the 
Italians  returned.  These  stratagems  had  an  undesirable 
effect  on  the  Italians. 

Not  the  least  of  the  Premiers'  disabilities  lay  in  the 
circumstance  that  they  were  the  merest  novices  in  inter- 
national affairs.  Geography,  ethnography,  psychology, 
and  political  history  were  sealed  books  to  them.  Like 
the  rector  of  Louvain  University  who  told  Oliver  Gold- 
smith that,  as  he  had  become  the  head  of  that  institution 
without  knowing  Greek,  he  failed  to  see  why  it  should  be 
taught  there,  the  chiefs  of  state,  having  attained  the 
highest  position  in  their  respective  countries  without  more 
than  an  inkling  of  international  affairs,  were  unable  to 
realize  the  importance  of  mastering  them  or  the  im- 
possibility of  repairing  the  omission  as  they  went  along. 

They  displayed  their  contempt  for  professional  diplo- 
macy and  this  feeling  was  shared  by  many,  but  they  ex- 
tended that  sentiment  to  certain  diplomatic  postulates 
which  can  in  no  case  be  dispensed  with,  because  they  are 
common  to  all  professions.  One  of  them  is  knowledge 
of  the  terms  of  the  problems  to  be  solved.  No  con- 
juncture could  have  been  less  favorable  for  an  experiment 
based  on  this  theory.  The  general  situation  made  a 
demand  on  the  delegates  for  special  knowledge  and  ex- 
perience, whereas  the  Premiers  and  the  President,  al- 
though specialists  in  nothing,  had  to  act  as  specialists  in 
everything.  Traditional  diplomacy  would  have  shown 
some  respect  for  the  law  of  causality.  It  would  have  sent 
to  the  Conference  diplomatists  more  or  less  acquainted 
with  the  issues  to  be  mooted  and  also  with  the  mentality 

102 


THE  DELEGATES 

of  the  other  negotiators,  and  it  would  have  assigned  to 
them  a  number  of  experts  as  advisers.  It  would  have 
formed  a  plan  similar  to  that  proposed  by  the  French 
authorities  and  rejected  by  the  Anglo-Saxons.  In  this 
way  at  least  the  technical  part  of  the  task  would  have 
been  tackled  on  right  lines,  the  war  would  have  been 
liquidated  and  nonnal  relations  quickly  re-established 
among  the  belligerent  states.  It  may  be  objected  that 
this  would  have  been  a  meager  contribution  to  the  new 
politico-social  fabric.  Undoubtedly  it  would,  but,  how- 
ever meager,  i^t  would  have  been  a  positive  gain.  Pos- 
sibly the  first  stone  of  a  new  world  might  have  been  laid 
once  the  ruins  of  the  old  were  cleared  away.  But  even 
this  modest  feat  could  not  be  achieved  by  amateurs 
working  in  desultory  fashion  and  handicapped  by  their 
political  parties  at  home.  The  resultant  of  their  ap- 
parent co-operation  was  a  sum  in  subtraction  because 
dispersal  or  effort  was  unavoidably  substituted  for 
concentration. 

Whether  one  contemplates  them  in  the  light  of  their 
public  acts  or  through  the  prism  of  gossip,  the  figures 
cut  by  the  delegates  of  the  Great  Powers  were  pathetic. 
Giants  in  the  parliamentary  sphere,  they  shrank  to  the 
dimensions  of  dwarfs  in  the  international.  In  matters 
of  geography,  ethnography,  history,  and  international 
politics  they  were  helplessly  at  sea,  and  the  stories  told 
of  certain  of  their  efforts  to  keep  their  heads  above  water 
while  maintaining  a  simulacrum  of  dignity  would  have 
been  amusing  were  the  issues  less  momentous.  "Is  it 
after  Upper  or  Lower  Silesia  that  those  greedy  Poles  are 
hankering?"  one  Premier  is  credibly  reported  to  have 
asked  some  months  after  the  Polish  delegation  had  pro- 
pounded and  defended  its  claims  and  he  had  had  time  to 
familiarize  himself  with  them.  "Please  point  out  to  me 
Daknatia  on  the  map,"  was  another  characteristic  request, 

103 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

"and  tell  me  what  connection  there  is  between  it  and 
Fiume."  One  of  the  principal  plenipotentiaries  addressed 
a  delegate  who  is  an  acquaintance  of  mine  approximately 
as  follows:  "I  cannot  understand  the  spokesmen  of  the 
smaller  states.  To  me  they  seem  stark  mad.  They  single 
out  a  strip  of  territory  and  for  no  intelligible  reason  flock 
round  it  like  birds  of  prey  round  a  corpse  on  the  field  of 
battle.  Take  Silesia,  for  example.  The  Poles  are  clamor- 
ing for  it  as  if  the  very  existence  of  their  country  de- 
pended on  their  annexing  it.  The  Germans  are  still  more 
crazy  about  it.  But  for  their  eagerness  I  suppose  there  is 
some  solid  foundation.  But  how  in  Heaven's  name  do 
the  Armenians  come  to  claim  it?  Just  think  of  it,  the 
Armenians!  The  world  has  gone  mad.  No  wonder 
France  has  set  her  foot  down  and  warned  them  off  the 
ground.  But  what  does  France  herself  want  with  it? 
What  is  the  clue  to  the  mystery?"  My  acquaintance,  in 
reply,  pointed  out  as  considerately  as  he  could  that 
Silesia  was  the  province  for  which  Poles  and  Germans 
were  contending,  whereas  the  Armenians  were  pleading 
for  Cilicia,  which  is  farther  east,  and  were,  therefore, 
frowned  upon  by  the  French,  who  conceive  that  they 
have  a  civilizing  mission  there  and  men  enough  to  ac- 
complish it. 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  epoch,  and  therefore  worthy 
of  the  historian's  attention,  that  not  only  the  members 
of  the  Conference,  but  also  other  leading  statesmen  of 
Anglo-Saxon  countries,  were  wont  to  make  a  very  little 
knowledge  of  peoples  and  countries  go  quite  a  far  way. 
Two  examples  may  serve  to  familiarize  the  reader  with  the 
phenomenon  and  to  moderate  his  surprise  at  the  defects 
of  the  world-dictators  in  Paris.  One  English-speaking 
statesman,  dealing  with  the  Italian  government  ^  and 
casting  around  for  vSome  effective  way  of  helping  the 

*  Both  of  them  occurred  before  the  armistice,  but  during  the  war. 

104 


THE   DELEGATES 

Icalian  people  out  of  their  pitiable  economic  plight, 
tancied  he  hit  upon  a  felicitous  expedient,  which  he  un- 
folded as  follows.  "I  venture,"  he  said,  "to  promise  that 
if  you  will  largely  increase  your  cultivation  of  bananas 
the  people  of  my  country  will  take  them  all.  No  matter 
how  great  the  quantities,  our  market  will  absorb  them, 
and  that  will  surely  make  a  considerable  addition  to  your 
balance  on  the  right  side."  At  first  the  Italians  believed 
he  was  joking.  But  finding  that  he  really  meant  what  he 
said,  they  ruthlessly  revealed  his  idea  to  the  nation  under 
the  heading,  "Italian  bananas!" 

Here  is  the  other  instance.  During  the  war  the  Polish 
people  was  undergoing  unprecedented  hardships.  Many 
of  the  poorer  classes  were  literally  perishing  of  hunger. 
A  Polish  commission  was  sent  to  an  English-speaking 
country  to  interest  the  government  and  people  in  the 
condition  of  the  sufferers  and  obtain  relief.  The  envoys 
had  an  interview  with  a  Secretary  of  State,  who  inquired 
to  what  port  they  intended  to  have  the  foodstuffs  con- 
veyed for  distribution  in  the  interior  of  Poland.  They 
answered : ' '  We  shall  have  them  taken  to  Dantzig.  There 
is  no  other  way."  The  statesman  reflected  a  little  and 
then  said :  ' '  You  may  meet  with  difficulties.  If  you  have 
them  shipped  to  Dantzig  you  must  of  course  first  obtain 
Italy's  permission.  Have  you  got  it?"  "No.  We  had 
not  thought  of  that.  In  fact,  we  don't  yet  see  why  Italy 
need  be  approached."  "Because  it  is  Italy  who  has 
command  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  if  you  want  the 
transport  taken  to  Dantzig  it  is  the  Italian  government 
that  you  must  ask!"  ^ 

The  delegates  picked  up  a  good  deal  of  miscellaneous 
information  about  the  various  countries  whose  future  they 
were  regulating,  and  to  their  credit  it  should  be  said  that 

^  For  the  accuracy  of  this  and  the  preceding  story  I  vouch  absolutely.  I 
have  the  names  of  persons,  places,  and  authorities,  which  are  superfluous  here. 

105 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

they  put  questions  to  their  informants  without  a  trace  of 
false  pride.  One  of  the  two  chief  delegates  wending  home- 
ward from  a  sitting  at  which  M.  Jules  Cambon  had 
spoken  a  good  deal  about  those  Polish  districts  which, 
although  they  contained  a  majority  of  Germans,  yet  be- 
longed of  right  to  Poland,  asked  the  French  delegate  why 
he  had  made  so  many  allusions  to  Frederick  the  Great. 
"What  had  Frederick  to  do  with  Poland?"  he  inquired. 
The  answer  was  that  the  present  German  majority  of  the 
inhabitants  was  made  up  of  colonists  who  had  immigrated 
into  the  districts  since  the  time  of  Frederick  the  Great  and 
the  partition  of  Poland.  "Yes,  I  see,"  exclaimed  the 
statesman,  "but  what  had  Frederick  the  Great  to  do  with 
the  partition  of  Poland?"  ...  In  the  domain  of  ethnogra- 
phy there  were  also  many  pitfalls  and  accidents.  During 
an  official  expose  of  the  Oriental  situation  before  the 
Supreme  Council,  one  of  the  Great  Four,  listening  to  a 
narrative  of  Turkish  misdeeds,  heard  that  the  Kurds  had 
tortured  and  killed  a  number  of  defenseless  women,  chil- 
dren, and  old  men.  He  at  once  interrupted  the  speaker 
with  the  query:  "You  now  call  them  Kurds.  A  few 
minutes  ago  you  said  they  were  Turks.  I  take  it  that  the 
Kurds  and  the  Turks  are  the  same  people?"  Loath  to 
embarrass  one  of  the  world's  arbiters,  the  delegate  respect- 
fully repHed,  "Yes,  sir,  they  are  about  the  same,  but  the 
worse  of  the  two  are  the  Kurds."  ^ 

Great  Britain's  first  delegate,  with  engaging  candor 
sought  to  disarm  criticism  by  frankly  confessing  in  the 
House  of  Commons  that  he  had  never  before  heard  of 
Teschen,  about  which  such  an  extraordinary  fuss  was  then 
being  made,  and  by  asking:    "How  many  members  of 

^  The  Kurds  are  members  of  the  great  Indo-European  family  to  which 
the  Greeks,  Italians,  Celts,  Teutons,  Slavs,  Hindus,  Persians,  and  Afghans 
belong,  wlicreas  the  Turks  are  a  branch  of  a  wholly  ditTeront  stock,  the 
Ural-Altai  groui),  of  which  tlie  Mongols,  Turks,  Tartars,  Finns,  and  Mag- 
yars are  members. 

1 06 


THE   DELEGATES 

the  House  have  ever  heard  of  Teschen?  Yet,"  he  added 
significantly,  "Teschen  very  nearly  produced  an  angry 
conflict  between  two  allied  states."  ^ 

The  circumstance  that  an  eminent  parliamentarian  had 
never  heard  of  problems  that  agitate  continental  peoples 
is  excusable.  Less  so  was  his  resolve,  despite  such  a  capi- 
tal disqualification,  to  undertake  the  task  of  solving  those 
problems  single-handed,  although  conscious  that  the  fate 
of  whole  peoples  depended  on  his  succeeding.  It  is  no 
adequate  justification  to  say  that  he  could  always  fall 
back  upon  special  commissions,  of  which  there  was  no 
lack  at  the  Conference.  Unless  he  possessed  a  safe  cri- 
terion by  which  to  assess  the  value  of  the  commissions' 
conclusions,  he  must  needs  himself  decide  the  matter 
arbitrarily.  And  the  delegates,  having  no  such  criterion, 
pronounced  very  arbitrary  judgments  on  momentous 
issues.  One  instance  of  this  turned  upon  Poland's  claims 
to  certain  territories  incorporated  in  Germany,  which  were 
referred  to  a  special  commission  under  the  presidency  of 
IvL  Cambon.  Commissioners  were  sent  to  the  country 
to  study  the  matter  on  the  spot,  where  they  had  received 
every  facility  for  acquainting  themselves  with  it.  After 
some  weeks  the  commission  reported  in  favor  of  the  Polish 
claim  with  unanimity.  But  Mr.  Lloyd  George  rejected 
their  conclusions  and  insisted  on  having  the  report  sent 
back  to  them  for  reconsideration.  Again  the  commis- 
sioners went  over  the  familiar  ground,  but  felt  obliged  to 
repeat  their  verdict  anew.  Once  more,  however,  the  Brit- 
ish Premier  demurred,  and  such  was  his  tenacity  that, 
despite  Mr.  Wilson's  opposition,  the  final  decision  of  the 
Conference  reversed  that  of  the  commission  and  non- 
suited the  Poles.  By  what  line  of  argument,  people 
naturally  asked,  did  the  first  British  delegate  come  to 
that  conclusion?     That  he  knew  more  about  the  matter 

1  April  1 6,  1 919. 

107 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

than  the  special  Inter-Allied  commission  is  hardly  to  be 
supposed.  Indeed,  nobody  assumed  that  he  was  any 
better  informed  on  that  subject  than  about  Teschen. 
The  explanation  put  in  circulation  by  interested  persons 
was  that,  like  Socrates,  he  had  his  own  familiar  demon  to 
prompt  him,  who,  like  all  such  spirits,  chose  to  flourish, 
like  the  violet,  in  the  shade.  That  this  source  of  light  was 
accessible  to  the  Prime  Minister  may,  his  apologists  hold, 
one  day  prove  a  boon  to  the  peoples  whose  fate  was  thus 
being  spun  in  darkness  and  seemingly  at  haphazard. 
Possibly.  But  in  the  meanwhile  it  was  construed  as  an 
affront  to  their  intelligence  and  a  violation  of  the  promise 
made  to  them  of  "open  covenants  openly  arrived  at." 
The  press  asked  why  the  information  requisite  for  the 
work  had  not  been  acquired  in  advance,  as  these  semi- 
mystical  ways  of  obtaining  it  commended  themselves  to 
nobody.  Wholly  mystical  were  the  methods  attributed 
to  one  or  other  of  the  men  who  were  preparing  the  advent 
of  the  new  era.  For  superstition  of  various  kinds  was 
supposed  to  be  as  well  represented  at  the  Paris  Conference 
as  at  the  Congress  of  Vienna.  Characteristic  of  the  epoch 
was  the  gravity  with  which  individuals  otherwise  well 
balanced  exercised  their  ingenuity  in  finding  out  the  true 
relation  of  the  world's  peace  to  certain  lucky  numbers. 
For  several  events  connected  with  the  Conference  the 
thirteenth  day  of  the  month  was  deliberately,  and  some 
occultists  added  felicitously,  chosen.  It  was  also  noticed 
that  an  effort  was  made  by  all  the  delegates  to  have  the 
Allies'  reply  to  the  German  counter-proposals  presented 
on  the  day  of  destiny,  Friday,  June  13th.  When  it  mis- 
carried a  flutter  was  caused  in  the  dovecotes  of  the  illumi- 
nated. The  failure  was  construed  as  an  inauspicious  omen 
and  it  caused  the  spirits  of  many  to  droop.  The  prin- 
cipal clairvoyante  of  Paris,  Madame  N— ,  who  plumes 
herself  on  being  the  intermediary  between  the  Fates  that 

108 


TlIK  DELEGATES 

rule  and  some  of  their  earthly  executors,  was  consulted  on 
the  subject,  one  knows  not  with  what  result.^  It  was 
given  out,  however,  as  the  solemn  utterance  of  the  oracle 
in  vogue  that  Mr.  Wilson's  enterprise  was  weighted  witli 
original  sin ;  he  had  made  one  false  step  before  his  arriv^al 
in  Europe,  and  that  had  put  everything  out  of  gear.  By 
enacting  fourteen  commandments  he  had  countered  the 
magic  charm  of  his  lucky  thirteen.  One  of  the  fourteen,  it 
was  soothsaid,  must  therefore  be  omitted — it  might  be,  say, 
that  of  open  covenants  openly  arrived  at,  or  the  freedom  of 
the  seas — in  a  word,  any  one  so  long  as  the  mystic  number 
thirteen  remained  intact.  But  should  that  be  impossible, 
seeing  that  the  Fourteen  Points  had  already  become  house- 
hold words  to  all  nations  and  peoples,  then  it  behooved  the 
President  to  number  the  last  of  his  saving  points  13a.- 

This  odd  mixture  of  the  real  and  the  fanciful — a  symp- 
tom, as  the  initiated  believed,  of  a  mood  of  fine  spiritual 
exaltation — met  with  little  sympathy  among  the  impatient 
masses  whose  struggle  for  bare  life  was  growing  ever 
fiercer.  Stagnation  held  the  business  world,  prices  were 
rising  to  prohibitive  heights,  partly  because  of  the  daw- 
dling of  the  world's  conclave;  hunger  was  stalking  about 
the  ruined  villages  of  the  northern  departments  of  France, 
destructive  wars  were  being  waged  in  eastern  Europe,  and 
thousands  of  Christians  were  dying  of  hunger  in  Bessa- 
rabia.^ Epigrammatic  strictures  and  winged  words  barbed 
with  stinging  satire  indicated  the  feelings  of  the  many. 
And  the  fact  remains  on  record  that  streaks  of  the  mysti- 
cism that  buoyed  up  Alexander  I  at  the  Congress  of 

^  Madame  N showed  a  friend  of  mine  an  autograph  letter  which  she 

claims  to  have  received  from  one  of  her  clients,  "a  world's  famous  man." 
I  was  several  times  invited  to  inspect  it  at  the  clairvoyante's  abode,  or  at 
my  own,  if  I  preferred. 

^  Articles  on  the  subject  appeared  in  the  French  press.  To  the  best  of 
my  recollection  there  was  one  in  Bonsoir. 

^  The  American  Red  Cross  buried  sixteen  hundred  of  them  in  August, 
1919.     The  Chicago  Tribune  (Paris  edition),  August  30,  19 19. 

109 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

Vienna,  and  is  supposed  to  have  stimulated  Nicholas  II 
during  the  first  world-parliament  at  The  Hague,  were 
noticeable  from  time  to  time  in  the  environment  of  the 
Paris  Conference.  The  disclosure  of  these  elements  of 
superstition  was  distinctly  harmful  and  might  have  been 
hindered  easily  by  the  system  of  secrecy  and  censorship 
which  effectively  concealed  matters  much  less  mischievous. 
The  position  of  the  plenipotentiaries  was  unenviable  at 
best  and  they  well  deserve  the  benefit  of  extenuating 
circumstances.  For  not  even  a  genius  can  efficiently 
tackle  problems  with  the  elements  of  which  he  lacks 
acquaintanceship,  and  the  mass  of  facts  which  they  had 
to  deal  with  was  sheer  unmanageable.  It  was  distressing 
to  watch  them  during  those  eventful  months  groping  and 
floundering  through  a  labyrinth  of  obstacles  with  no  Ari- 
adne clue  to  guide  their  tortuous  course,  and  discovering 
that  their  task  was  more  intricate  than  they  had  imagined. 
The  ironic  domination  of  temper  and  circumstance  over 
the  fitful  exertions  of  men  struggling  with  the  partially 
realized  difficulties  of  a  false  position  led  to  many  incon- 
gruities upon  which  it  would  be  ungracious  to  dwell.  One 
of  them,  however,  which  illustrates  the  situation,  seems 
almost  incredible.  It  is  said  to  have  occurred  in  January. 
According  to  the  current  narrative,  soon  after  the  arrival 
of  President  Wilson  in  Paris,  he  received  from  a  French 
publicist  named  M.  B.  a  long  and  interesting  memoran- 
dum about  the  island  of  Corsica,  recounting  the  history, 
needs,  and  aspirations  of  the  population  as  well  as  the 
various  attempts  they  had  made  to  regain  their  inde- 
pendence, and  requesting  him  to  employ  his  good  offices 
at  the  Conference  to  obtain  for  them  complete  autonomy. 
To  this  demand  M.  B.  is  said  to  have  received  a  reply  ^ 
to  the  effect  that  the  President  "is  persuaded  that  this 


^  The  reply,  of  which  I  possess  what  was  given  to  me  as  a  copy,  is  dated 
Paris,  January  9,  1919,  and  is  in  French. 

110 


THE   DELEGATES 

question  will  form  the  subject  of  a  thorough  examination 
by  the  competent  authorities  of  the  Conference"!  Cor- 
sica, the  birthplace  of  Napoleon,  and  as  much  an  integral 
part  of  France  as  the  Isle  of  Man  is  of  England,  seeking 
to  slacken  the  ties  that  link  it  to  the  Republic  and  receiv- 
ing a  promise  that  tlie  matter  would  be  carefully  considered 
by  the  delegates  sounds  more  like  a  mystification  than  a  sober 
statement  of  fact.  The  story  was  sent  to  the  newspapers 
for  publication,  but  the  censor  very  wisely  struck  it  out. 

These  and  kindred  occurrences  enable  one  better  to 
appreciate  the  motives  which  prompted  the  delegates  to 
shroud  their  conversations  and  tentative  decisions  in  a 
decorous  veil  of  secrecy. 

It  is  but  fair  to  say  that  the  enterprise  to  which  they 
set  their  hands  was  the  vastest  that  ever  tempted  lofty 
ambitions  since  the  tower-builders  of  Babel  strove  to 
bring  heaven  within  reach  of  the  earth.  It  transcended 
the  capacity  of  the  contemporary  world's  greatest  men.* 


'  Imagine,  for  instance,  the  condition  of  mind  into  which  the  following 
day's  work  must  have  thrown  the  American  statesman,  beset  as  he  was 
with  political  worries  of  his  own.  The  extract  quoted  is  taken  from  The 
Daily  Mail  of  April  i8,  1919  (Paris  edition). 

President  Wilson  had  a  busy  day  yesterday,  as  the  following  list  of  engagements  shows: 

II  A.M.     Dr.  Wellington  Koo,  to  present  the  Chinese  Delegation  to  the  Peace  Conference. 

1 1. 10  A.M.  Marquis  de  Vogu6  had  a  delegation  of  seven  others,  representing  the  Congres 
Frangais.  to  present  their  view  as  to  the  disposition  of  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine. 

II.30  A.M.  Assyrian  and  Chaldean  Delegation,  with  a  message  from  the  Assyrian- 
Chaldean  nation. 

1 1.4s  A.M.  Dalmatian  Delegation,  to  present  to  the  President  the  result  of  the  plebiscite 
of  that  part  of  Dalmatia  occupied  by  Italians. 

Noon.  M.  Bucquet,  Charge  d'Affaires  of  San  Marino,  to  convey  the  action  of  the 
Grand  Council  of  San  Marino,  conferring  on  the  President  Honorary  Citizenship  in  the 
Republic  of  San  Marino. 

12.10  P.M.     M.  Colonder,  Swiss  Minister  of  Foreign  AfTairs. 

12.20  P.M.  Miss  Rose  Schneiderman  and  Miss  Mary  Anderson,  delegates  of  the  National 
Women's  Trade  Union  League  of  the  United  States. 

1 2. .30  P.M.     The  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  the  head  of  the  Orthodox  Eastern  Church. 

12.45  P.M.     Essad  Pasha,  delegate  of  Albania,  to  present  the  claims  of  Albania. 

I  P.M.     M.  M.  L.  Coromilas.  Greek  Minister  at  Rome,  to  pay  his  respects. 

Luncheon.     Mr.  Xewton  D.  Baker,  Secretary  for  War. 

4  P.M.     Mr.  Herbert  Hoover. 

4. IS  P.M.     M.  Bratiano,  of  the  Rumanian  Delegation. 

4.30  P.M.  Dr.  Aflonso  Costa,  former  Portuguese  Minister,  Portuguese  Delegate  to 
the  Peace  Conference. 

4.4s  P.M.  Boghos  Nubar  Pasha,  president  of  the  Armenian  National  Delegation, 
accompanied  by  M.  A.  Aharoman  and  Professor  A.  Der  Hagopian,  of  Robert  College. 

S-iS  P.M.     M.  Pasitch,  of  the  Serbian  Delegation. 

S.30  P.M.    Mr.  Frank  Walsh,  of  the  Irish-American  Delegation, 

III 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

It  was  a  labor  for  a  wonder-worker  in  the  pristine  days 
of  heroes.  But  although  to  solve  even  the  main  problems 
without  residue  was  beyond  the  reach  of  the  most  genial 
representatives  of  latter-day  statecraft,  it  needed  only 
clearness  of  conception,  steadiness  of  purpose,  and  the 
proper  adjustment  of  means  to  ends,  to  begin  the  work 
on  the  right  lines  and  give  it  an  impulse  that  might 
perhaps  carry  it  to  completion  in  the  fullness  of  time. 

But  even  these  postulates  were  wanting.  The  eminent 
parliamentarians  failed  to  rise  to  the  gentle  height  of 
average  statecraft.  They  appeared  in  their  new  and 
august  character  of  world-reformers  with  all  the  roots 
still  clinging  to  them  of  the  rank  electoral  soil  from  which 
they  sprang.  Their  words  alone  were  redolent  of  idealism, 
their  deeds  were  too  often  marred  by  pettifogging  com- 
promises or  childish  blunders — ^constructive  phrases  and 
destructive  acts.  Not  only  had  they  no  settled  method 
of  working,  they  lacked  even  a  common  proximate  aim. 
For  although  they  all  employed  the  same  phraseology 
when  describing  the  objects  for  which  their  countries  had 
fought  and  they  themselves  were  ostensibly  laboring, 
no  two  delegates  attached  the  same  ideas  to  the  words 
they  used.  Yet,  instead  of  candidly  avowing  this  root- 
defect  and  remedying  it,  they  were  content  to  stretch  the 
euphemistic  terms  until  these  covered  conflicting  con- 
ceptions and  gratified  the  ears  of  every  hearer.  Thus, 
"open  covenants  openly  arrived  at"  came  to  mean 
arbitrary  ukases  issued  by  a  secret  conclave,  and  "the 
self-determination  of  peoples  "  connoted  implicit  obedience 
to  dictatorial  decrees.  The  new  result  was  a  bewildering 
phantasmagoria. 

And  yet  it  was  professedly  for  the  purpose  of  obviating 
such  misunderstandings  that  Mr.  Wilson  had  crossed  the 
Atlantic.  Having  expressed  in  plain  terms  the  ideals 
for  which  American  soldiers  had  fought,  and  which  became 

112 


THE  DELEGATES 

the  substance  of  the  thoughts  and  purposes  of  the  asso- 
ciated statesmen,  "I  owe  it  to  them,"  he  had  said,  "to 
see  to  it,  in  so  far  as  in  me  hes,  that  no  false  or  mistaken 
interpretation  is  put  upon  them  and  no  possible  effort 
omitted  to  realize  them."  And  that  was  the  result 
achieved . 

No  such  juggling  with  words  as  went  on  at  the  Con- 
ference had  been  witnessed  since  the  days  of  medieval 
casuistry.  New  meanings  were  infused  into  old  terms, 
rendering  the  help  of  "exegesis"  indispensable.  Expres- 
sions like  "territorial  equilibrium"  and  "strategic  fron- 
tiers" were  stringently  banished,  and  it  is  affirmed  that 
President  Wilson  would  wince  and  his  expression  change 
at  the  bare  mention  of  these  obnoxious  symbols  of  the 
effete  ordering  which  it  was  part  of  his  mission  to  do 
away  with  forever.  And  yet  the  things  signified  by 
those  words  were  preserved  withal  under  other  names. 
Nor  could  it  well  be  otherwise.  One  can  hardly  conceive 
a  durable  state  system  in  Europe  under  the  new  any  more 
than  the  old  dispensation  without  something  that  cor- 
responds to  equilibrium.  An  architect  who  should 
boastingly  discard  the  law  of  gravitation  in  favor  of  a 
different  theory  would  stand  little  chance  of  being 
intrusted  with  the  construction  of  a  palace  of  peace. 
Similarly,  a  statesman  who,  while  proclaiming  that  the 
era  of  wars  is  not  yet  over,  would  deprive  of  strategic 
frontiers  the  pivotal  states  of  Europe  w^hich  are  most 
exposed  to  sudden  attack  would  deserve  to  find  few 
disciples  and  fewer  clients.  Yet  that  was  what  Mr. 
Wilson  aimed  at  and  what  some  of  his  friends  affirm  he 
has  achieved.  His  foreign  colleagues  re-echoed  his 
dogmas  after  having  emasculated  them.  It  was  instruc- 
tive and  unedifying  to  watch  how  each  of  the  delegates, 
when  his  own  country's  turn  came  to  be  dealt  with  on 
the  new  lines,  reversed  his  tactics  and,  sacrificing  sound 

113 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

to  substance,  insisted  on  safeguards,  relied  on  historic 
rights,  invoked  economic  requirements,  and  appealed  to 
common  sense,  but  all  the  while  loyally  abjured  "ter- 
ritorial equilibrium"  and  "strategic  guarantees."  Hence 
the  fierce  struggles  which  MM.  Orlando,  Dmowski, 
Bratiano,  Venizelos,  and  Makino  had  to  carry  on  with 
the  chief  of  that  state  which  is  the  least  interested  in 
European  affairs  in  order  to  obtain  all  or  part  of  the  ter- 
ritories which  they  considered  indispensable  to  the 
security  and  well-being  of  their  respective  countries. 

At  the  outset  Mr.  Wilson  stood  for  an  ideal  Europe  of  a 
wholly  new  and  undefined  type,  which  would  have  done 
away  with  the  need  for  strategic  frontiers.  Its  contours 
were  vague,  for  he  had  no  clear  mental  picture  of  the 
concrete  Europe  out  of  which  it  was  to  be  fashioned.  He 
spoke,  indeed,  and  would  fain  have  acted,  as  though  the 
old  Continent  were  like  a  thinly  inhabited  territory  of 
North  America  fifty  years  ago,  unencumbered  by  awk- 
ward survivals  of  the  past  and  capable  of  receiving  any 
impress.  He  seemingly  took  no  account  of  its  history, 
its  peoples,  or  their  interests  and  strivings.  History 
shared  the  fate  of  Kolchak's  government  and  the  Ukraine; 
it  was  not  recognized  by  the  delegates.  What  he  brought 
to  Europe  from  America  was  an  abstract  idea,  old  and 
European,  and  at  first  his  foreign  colleagues  treated  it  as 
such.  Some  of  them  had  actually  sneered  at  it,  others 
had  damned  it  with  faint  praise,  and  now  all  of  them 
honestly  strove  to  save  their  own  countries'  vital  interests 
from  its  disruptive  action  while  helping  to  apply  it  to  their 
neighbors.  Thus  Britain,  who  at  that  time  had  no 
territorial  claims  to  put  forward,  had  her  sea-doctrine  to 
uphold,  and  she  upheld  it  resolutely.  Before  he  reached 
Europe  the  President  was  notified  in  plain  terms  that  his 
theory  of  the  freedom  of  the  seas  would  neither  be  enter- 
tained nor  discussed.     Accordingly,  he  abandoned  it  with- 

114 


THE  DELEGATES 

out  protest.  It  was  then  explained  away  as  a  journalistic 
misconception.  That  was  the  first  toll  paid  by  the 
American  reformer  in  Europe,  and  it  spelled  failure  to  his 
entire  scheme,  which  was  one  and  indivisible.  It  fell 
to  my  lot  to  record  the  payment  of  the  tribute  and  the 
abandonment  of  that  first  of  the  fourteen  commandments. 
The  mystic  thirteen  remained.  But  soon  afterward  an- 
other went  by  the  board.  Then  there  were  twelve. 
And  gradually  the  number  dwindled. 

This  recognition  of  hard  realities  was  a  bitter  disap- 
pointment to  all  the  friends  of  the  spiritual  and  social 
renovation  of  the  world.  It  was  a  spectacle  for  cynics. 
It  rendered  a  frank  return  to  the  ancient  system  unavoid- 
able and  brought  grist  to  the  mill  of  the  equilibrists.  And 
yet  the  conclusion  was  shriked.  But  even  the  tough 
realities  might  have  been  made  to  yield  a  tolerable  peace 
if  they  had  been  faced  squarely.  If  the  new  conception 
could  not  be  realized  at  once,  the  old  one  should  have 
been  taken  back  into  favor  provisionally  until  broader 
foundations  could  be  laid,  but  it  must  be  one  thing  or  the 
other.  From  the  political  angle  of  vision  at  which  the 
European  delegates  insisted  on  placing  themselves,  the 
Old  World  way  of  tackling  the  various  problems  was 
alone  admissible.  Their  program  was  coherent  and  their 
reasoning  strictly  logical.  The  former  included  strategic 
frontiers  and  territorial  equilibrium.  Doubtless  this  angle 
of  vision  was  narrow,  the  survey  it  allowed  was  inadequate, 
and  the  results  attainable  ran  the  risk  of  being  ultimately 
thrust  aside  by  the  indignant  peoples.  For  the  world 
problem  was  not  wholly  nor  even  mainly  political.  Still, 
the  method  was  intelligible  and  the  ensuing  combinations 
would  have  hung  coherently  together.  They  would  have 
satisfied  all  those — and  they  were  many — who  believed 
that  the  second  decade  of  the  twentieth  century  differs 
in  no  essential  respect  from  the  first  and  that  latter-day 
9  IIS 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

world  problems  may  oe  solved  by  judicious  territorial 
redistribution.  But  even  that  conception  was  not  con- 
sistently acted  on  Deviations  were  permitted  here  and 
insisted  upon  there,  only  they  were  spoken  of  unctuously 
as  sacrifices  incumbent  on  the  lesser  states  to  the  Fourteen 
Points.  For  the  delegates  set  great  store  by  their  reputa- 
tion for  logic  and  coherency.  Whatever  other  charges 
against  the  Conference  might  be  tolerated,  that  of  in- 
consistency was  bitterly  resented,  especially  by  Mr. 
Wilson.  For  a  long  while  he  contended  that  he  was  as 
true  to  his  Fourteen  Points  as  is  the  needle  to  the  pole. 
It  was  not  until  after  his  return  to  Washington,  in  the 
summer,  that  he  admitted  the  perturbations  caused  by 
magnetic  currents — sympathy  for  France  he  termed  them. 
The  effort  of  imagination  required  to  discern  consistency 
in  such  of  the  Council's  decisions  as  became  known  from 
time  to  time  was  so  far  beyond  the  capacity  of  average 
outsiders  that  the  ugly  phrase  "to  make  the  world  safe 
for  hypocrisy"  was  early  coined,  uttered,  and  propagated. 


IV 

CENSORSHIP    AND   SECRECY 

NEVER  was  political  veracity  in  Europe  at  a  lower 
ebb  than  during  the  Peace  Conference.  The  blind- 
ing dust  of  half-truths  cunningly  mixed  with  falsehood 
and  deliberately  scattered  with  a  lavish  hand,  obscured 
the  vision  of  the  people,  who  were  expected  to  adopt  or 
acquiesce  in  the  judgments  of  their  rulers  on  the  various 
questions  that  arose.  Four  and  a  half  years  of  continuous 
and  deliberate  lying  for  victory  had  disembodied  the 
spirit  of  veracity  and  good  faith  throughout  the  world  of 
politics.  Facts  were  treated  as  plastic  and  capable  of 
being  shaped  after  this  fashion  or  that,  according  to  the 
aim  of  the  speaker  or  writer.  Promises  were  made,  not 
because  the  things  promised  were  seen  to  be  necessary 
or  desirable,  but  merely  in  order  to  dispose  the  public 
favorably  toward  a  policy  or  an  expedient,  or  to  create 
and  maintain  a  certain  frame  of  mind  toward  the  enemies 
or  the  Allies.  At  elections  and  in  parliamentary  dis- 
courses, undertakings  were  given,  some  of  which  were 
known  to  be  impossible  of  fulfilment.  Thus  the  ministers 
in  some  of  the  AlHed  countries  bound  themselves  to  compel 
the  Germans  not  only  to  pay  full  compensation  for 
damage  wantonly  done,  but  also  to  defray  the  entire  cost 
of  the  war. 

The  notion  that  the  enemy  would  thus  make  good  all 
losses  was  manifestly  preposterous.  In  a  century  the 
debt  could  not  be  wiped  out,  even  though  the  Teutonic 

117 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

people  could  be  got  to  work  steadily  and  selflessly  for  the 
purpose.  For  their  productivity  would  be  unavailing  if 
their  victorious  adversaries  were  indisposed  to  admit  the 
products  to  their  markets.  And  not  only  were  the 
governments  unwilling,  but  some  of  the  peoples  announced 
their  determination  to  boycott  German  wares  on  their 
own  initiative.  None  the  less  the  nations  were  for 
months  buoyed  up  with  the  baleful  delusion  that  all  their 
war  expenses  would  be  refunded  by  the  enemy.  ^ 

It  was  not  the  governments  only,  however,  who,  after 
having  for  over  four  years  colored  and  refracted  the 
truth,  now  continued  to  twist  and  invent  "facts."  The 
newspapers,  with  some  honorable  exceptions,  buttressed 
them  up  and  even  outstripped  them.  Plausible  unve- 
racity  thus  became  a  patriotic  accomplishment  and  a 
recognized  element  of  politics.  Parties  and  states  em- 
ployed it  freely.  Fiction  received  the  hall-mark  of  truth 
and  fancies  were  current  as  facts.  Public  men  who  had 
solemnly  hazarded  statements  belied  by  subsequent 
events  denied  having  ever  uttered  them.  Never  before 
was  the  baleful  theory  that  error  is  helpful  so  systemati- 
cally applied  as  during  the  war  and  the  armistice.  If  the 
falsehoods  circulated  and  the  true  facts  suppressed  were 
to  be  collected  and  published  in  a  volume,  one  would 
realize  the  depth  to  which  the  standard  of  intellectual 
and  moral  integrity  was  lowered.^ 

The  censorship  was  retained  by  the  Great  Powers  during 
the  Conference  as  a  sort  of  soft  cushion  on  which  the  self- 


^  The  French  Minister  of  Finances  made  this  the  cornerstone  of  his 
poHcy  and  declared  that  the  indemnity  to  be  paid  by  the  vanquished  Teu- 
tons would  enable  him  to  set  the  finances  of  France  on  a  permanently  sound 
basis.     In  view  of  this  expectation  new  taxation  was  eschewed. 

*  A  selection  of  the  untruths  published  in  the  French  press  during  the 
war  has  been  reproduced  by  the  Paris  journal,  Bonsoir.  It  contains  abun- 
dant pabulum  for  the  cynic  and  valuable  data  for  the  psychologist.  The 
example  might  be  followed  in  Great  Britain.  The  title  is:  "Anthologie 
du  Bourrage  de  Crdne."     It  began  in  the  month  of  July,  1919. 

118 


CENSORSHIP  AND  SECRECY 

constituted  dispensers  of  Fate  comfortably  reposed.  In 
Paris,  where  it  was  particularly  severe  and  unreasoning, 
it  protected  the  secret  conclave  from  the  harsh  strictures 
of  the  outside  world,  concealing  from  the  public,  not  only 
the  incongruities  of  the  Conference,  but  also  many  of  the 
warnings  of  contemporary  history.  In  the  opinion  of 
unbaised  Frenchmen  no  such  rigorous,  systematic,  and 
short-sighted  repression  of  press  liberty  had  been  known 
since  the  Third  Empire  as  was  kept  up  under  the  rule  of 
the  great  tribune  whose  public  career  had  been  one  con- 
tinuous campaign  against  every  form  of  coercion.  This 
twofold  policy  of  secrecy  on  the  part  of  the  delegates  and 
censorship  on  the  part  of  the  authorities  proved  incon- 
gruous as  well  as  dangerous,  for,  upheld  by  the  eminent 
statesmen  who  had  laid  down  as  part  of  the  new  gospel 
the  principle  of  "open  covenants  openly  arrived  at," 
it  furnished  the  world  with  a  fairly  correct  standard  by 
which  to  interpret  the  entire  phraseology  of  the  latter-day 
reformers.  Events  showed  that  only  by  applying  that 
criterion  could  the  worth  of  their  statements  of  fact  and 
their  promises  of  amelioration  be  gaged.  And  it  soon 
became  clear  that  most  of  their  utterances  like  that  about 
open  covenants  w^ere  to  be  construed  according  to  the 
maxim  of  Incus  a  non  lucendo. 

It  was  characteristic  of  the  system  that  two  American 
citizens  were  employed  to  read  the  cablegrams  arriving 
from  the  United  States  to  French  newspapers.  The 
object  was  the  suppression  of  such  messages  as  tended  to 
throw  doubt  on  the  useful  belief  that  the  people  of  the 
great  American  Republic  were  solid  behind  their  President, 
ready  to  approve  his  decisions  and  acts,  and  that  his 
cherished  Covenant,  sure  of  ratification,  would  serve  as  a 
safe  guarantee  to  all  the  states  which  the  application 
of  his  various  principles  might  leave  strategically  exposed. 
In  this  way  many  interesting  items  of  intelligence  from 

119 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

the  United  States  were  kept  out  of  the  newspapers,  while 
others  were  mutilated  and  almost  all  were  delayed.  Pro- 
tests were  unavailing.  Nor  was  it  until  several  months 
were  gone  by  that  the  French  public  became  aware  of  the 
existence  of  a  strong  current  of  American  opinion  which 
favored  a  critical  attitude  toward  Mr.  Wilson's  policy 
and  justified  misgivings  as  to  the  finality  of  his  decisions. 
It  was  a  sorry  expedient  and  an  unsuccessful  one. 

On  another  occasion  strenuous  efforts  are  reported  to 
have  been  made  through  the  intermediary  of  President 
Wilson  to  delay  the  publication  in  the  United  States  of  a 
cablegram  to  a  journal  there  until  the  Prime  Minister  of 
Britain  should  deliver  a  speech  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
An  accident  balked  these  exertions  and  the  message 
appeared. 

Publicity  was  none  the  less  strongly  advocated  by  the 
plenipotentiaries  in  their  speeches  and  writings.  These 
were  as  sign-posts  pointing  to  roads  along  which  they 
themselves  were  incapable  of  moving.  By  their  own 
accounts  they  were  inveterate  enemies  of  secrecy  and 
censorship.  The  President  of  the  United  States  had 
publicly  said  that  he  "could  not  conceive  of  anything 
more  hurtful  than  the  creation  of  a  system  of  censorship 
that  would  deprive  the  people  of  a  free  republic  such  as 
ours  of  their  undeniable  right  to  criticize  public  officials." 
M.  Clemenceau,  who  suffered  more  than  most  publicists 
from  systematic  repression,  had  changed  the  name  of  his 
newspaper  from  the  L'Honime  Libre  to  UHommc  En- 
chatne,  and  had  passed  a  severe  judgment  on  "those 
friends  of  liberty"  (the  government)  who  tempered  free- 
dom with  preventive  repression  measured  out  accord- 
ing to  the  mood  uppermost  at  the  moment.*  But  as 
soon  as  he  himself  became  head  of  the  government 
he  changed  his  tactics  and  called  his  journal  LHomme 

^  Cf.  The  New  York  Herald  (Paris  edition),  June  2,  1919. 

120 


CENSORSHIP  AND  SECRECY 

Libre  again.  In  the  Chamber  he  announced  that  "pub- 
licity for  the  'debates'  of  the  Conference  was  generally 
favored,"  but  in  practice  he  rendered  the  system  of  gag- 
ging the  press  a  byword  in  Europe.  Drawing  his  own 
line  of  demarcation  between  the  permissible  and  the 
illicit,  he  informed  the  Chamber  that  so  long  as  the  Con- 
ference was  engaged  on  its  arduous  Vs'ork  "it  must  not 
be  said  that  the  head  of  one  government  had  put  forward 
a  proposal  which  was  opposed  by  the  head  of  another 
government."  ^  As  though  the  disagreements,  the  bicker- 
ings, and  the  serious  quarrels  of  the  heads  of  the  govern- 
ments could  long  be  concealed  from  the  peoples  whose 
spokesmen  they  were! 

That  bargainings  went  on  at  the  Conference  which  a 
plain-dealing  world  ought  to  be  apprised  of  is  the  con- 
clusion which  every  unbiased  outsider  will  draw  from  the 
singular  expedients  resorted  to  for  the  purpose  of  con- 
cealing them.  Before  the  Foreign  Relations  Committee 
in  Washington,  State-Secretary  Lansing  confessed  that 
when,  after  the  treaty  had  been  signed,  the  French  Senate 
called  for  the  minutes  of  the  proceedings  on  the  Commis- 
sion of  the  League  of  Nations,  President  Wilson  tele- 
graphed from  Washington  to  the  Peace  Commission  re- 
questing it  to  withhold  them.  He  further  admitted  that 
the  only  written  report  of  the  discussions  in  existence  was 
left  in  Paris,  outside  the  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States 
Senate.  When  questioned  as  to  whether,  in  view  of  this 
system  of  concealment,  the  President's  promise  of  "open 
covenants  openly  aixived  at"  could  be  said  to  have  been 
honestly  redeemed,  Mr.  Lansing  answered,  "I  consider 
that  was  carried  out."  ^  It  seems  highly  probable  that  in 
the  same  and  only  in  the  same  sense  will  the  Treaty  and 
the  Covenant  be  carried  out  in  the  spirit  or  the  letter. 

^  Cf.  The  Daily  Mail  (Paris  edition),  January  17,  1919. 
-  C£.  The  Chicago  Tribune,  August  27,  1919. 

121 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

During  the  fateful  days  of  the  Conference  preventive 
censorship  was  practised  with  a  degree  of  rigor  equaled 
only  by  its  senselessness.  As  late  as  the  month  of  June, 
the  columns  of  the  newspapers  were  checkered  with  blank 
spaces.  "Scarcely  a  newspaper  in  Paris  appears  uncen- 
sored  at  present,"  one  press  organ  wrote.  "Some  papers 
protest,  but  protests  are  in  vain."  ^ 

"Practically  not  a  word  as  to  the  nature  of  the  Peace 
terms  that  France  regards  as  most  vital  to  her  existence 
appears  in  the  French  papers  this  morning, ' '  com-plained  a 
journal  at  the  time  when  even  the  Germans  were  fully  in- 
formed of  what  was  being  enacted.  On  one  occasion  Bonsoir 
was  seized  for  expressing  the  view  that  the  Treaty  embodied 
an  Anglo-Saxon  peace ;-  on  another  for  reproducing  an  inter- 
view with  Marshal  Foch  that  had  already  appeared  in  a 
widely  circulated  Paris  newspaper.^  By  way  of  justifying 
another  of  these  seizures  the  French  censor  alleged  that  an 
article  in  the  paper  was  deemed  uncompUmentary  to  Mr. 
Lloyd  George.  The  editor  replied  in  a  letter  to  the  Brit- 
ish Premier  affirming  that  there  was  nothing  in  the  article 
but  what  Mr.  Lloyd  George  could  and  should  be  proud  of. 
In  fact,  it  only  commended  him  "for  having  served  the 
interests  of  his  country  most  admirably  and  having  had 
precedence  given  to  them  over  all  others."  The  letter 
concluded:  "We  are  apprehensive  that  in  the  whole  busi- 
ness there  is  but  one  thing  truly  uncomplimentary,  and 
that  is  that  the  French  censorship,  for  the  purpose  of 
strangling  the  French  press,  should  employ  your  name,  the 
name  of  him  who  abolished  censorship  many  weeks  ago."  ^ 

Even  when  British  journalists  were  dealing  with  matters 
as  unlikely  to  cause  trouble  as  a  description  of  the  historic 
proceedings  at  Versailles  at  which  the  Germans  received 

*  Cf.  The  New  York  Herald  (Paris  edition),  June  lo,  1919. 
^  Cf.  Bonsoir,  June  20,  1919. 

3  On  April  27th. 

*  Bonsoir,  June  21,  1919. 

122 


CENSORSHIP  AND  SECRECY 

the  Peace  Treaty,  the  censor  held  back  their  messages 
from  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  till  three  the  next  morn- 
ing.* Strange  though  it  may  seem,  it  was  at  first  decided 
that  no  newspaper-men  should  be  allowed  to  witness  the 
formal  handing  of  the  Treaty  to  the  enemy  delegates! 
For  it  was  deemed  advisable  in  the  interests  of  the  world 
that  even  that  ceremonial  should  be  secret.-  These  singu- 
lar methods  were  impressively  illustrated  and  summarized 
in  a  cartoon  representing  ]Mr.  Wilson  as  "The  new  wrest- 
ling championj"  throwing  down  his  adversary,  the  press, 
whose  garb,  composed  of  journals,  was  being  scattered  in 
scraps  of  paper  to  the  floor,  and  under  the  picture  was  the 
legend:  "It  is  forbidden  to  publish  what  Marshal  Foch 
says.  It  is  forbidden  to  publish  what  Mr.  George  thinks. 
It  is  forbidden  to  publish  the  Treaty  of  Peace  with  Ger- 
many. It  is  forbidden  to  publish  what  happened  at  .  .  . 
and  to  make  sure  that  nothing  else  will  be  published,  the 
censor  systematically  delays  the  transmission  of  every 
telegram."  ^ 

In  the  Chamber  the  government  was  adjured  to  sup- 
press the  institution  of  censorship  once  the  Treaty  was 
signed  by  the  Germans,  and  Ministers  were  reminded  of 
the  diatribes  which  they  had  pronounced  against  that 
institution  in  the  years  of  their  ambitions  and  strivings. 
In  vain  Deputies  described  and  deplored  the  process  of 
demoralization  that  was  being  furthered  by  the  methods 
of  the  government.  "In  the  provinces  as  well  as  in  the 
capital  the  journals  that  displease  are  seized,  eaves- 
droppers Hsten  to  telephonic  conversations,  the  secrets 
of  private  letters  are  violated.  Arrangements  are  made 
that  certain  telegrams  shall  arrive  too  late,  and  spies  are 
delegated  to  the  most  private  meetings.    At  a  recent 


*  The  New  York  Herald,  May  15,  1919. 
=  The  New  York  Herald  (Paris  edition),  May  3,  1919. 
'  The  New  York  Herald,  June  6,  1919. 

123 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

gathering  of  members  of  the  National  Press,  two  spies 
were  surprised,  and  another  was  discovered  at  the  Fed- 
eration of  the  Radical  Committees  of  the  Gise."  *  But 
neither  the  signature  of  the  Treaty  nor  its  ratification  by 
Germany  occasioned  the  slightest  modification  in  the  sys- 
tem of  restrictions,  Paris  continued  in  a  state  of  siege 
and  the  censors  were  the  busiest  bureaucrats  in  the  capital. 

One  undesirable  result  of  this  regime  of  keeping  the 
public  in  the  dark  and  indoctrinating  it  in  the  views  always 
narrow,  and  sometimes  mischievous,  which  the  authorities 
desired  it  to  hold,  was  that  the  absurdities  which  were 
allowed  to  appear  with  the  hall-mark  of  censorship  were 
often  believed  to  emanate  directly  from  the  government. 
Britons  and  Americans  versed  in  the  books  of  the  New 
Testament  were  shocked  or  amused  when  told  that  the 
censor  had  allowed  the  following  passage  to  appear  in  an 
eloquent  speech  delivered  by  the  ex-Premier,  M.  Painleve: 
"As  Hall  Caine,  the  great  American  poet,  has  put  it,  *0 
death,  where  is  thy  sting?  O  grave,  where  is  thy  vic- 
tory?'" 2 

Every  conceivable  precaution  was  taken  against  the 
leakage  of  information  respecting  what  was  going  on  in 
the  Council  of  Ten.  Notwithstanding  this,  the  French 
papers  contrived  now  and  again,  during  the  first  couple 
of  months,  to  publish  scraps  of  news  calculated  to  convey 
to  the  public  a  faint  notion  of  the  proceedings,  until  one 
day  a  Nationalist  organ  boldly  announced  that  the  British 
Premier  had  disagreed  with  the  expert  commission  and 
with  his  own  colleagues  on  the  subject  of  Dantzig  and 
refused  to  give  way.  This  paragraph  irritated  the  British 
statesman,  who  made  a  scene  at  the  next  meeting  of  the 
Council,     "There  is,"  he  is  reported  to  have  exclaimed, 


'    *  Cf.  Le  Matin,  July  9,  1919.     Tlic  chief  speakers  alluded  to  were  MM. 
Renaudel,  Deshayes,  Lafont,  Paul  Meunier,  Vandame. 
"  llie  New  York  Herald  (Paris  edition),  April  29,  1919. 

124 


CENSORSHIP  AND  SECRECY 

"some  one  among  us  here  who  is  unmindful  of  his  obliga- 
tions," and  while  uttering  these  and  other  much  stronger 
words  he  eyed  severely  a  certain  mild  individual  who  is 
said  to  have  trembled  all  over  during  the  philippic.  He 
also  launched  out  into  a  violent  diatribe  against  various 
French  journals  which  had  criticized  his  views  on  Poland 
and  his  method  of  carrying  them  in  council,  and  he  went 
so  far  as  to  threaten  to  have  the  Conference  transferred 
to  a  neutral  country.  In  conclusion  he  demanded  an 
investigation  into  the  origin  of  the  leakage  of  information 
and  the  adoption  of  severe  disciplinary  measures  against 
the  journalists  who  published  the  disclosures.^  Thence- 
forward the  Council  of  Ten  was  suspended  and  its  place 
taken  by  a  smaller  and  more  secret  conclave  of  Five, 
Four,  or  Three,  according  as  the  state  of  the  plenipoten- 
tiaries' health,  the  requirements  of  their  home  politics,  or 
their  relations  among  themselves  caused  one  or  two  to 
quit  Paris  temporarily. 

This  measure  insured  relative  secrecy,  fostered  rumors  ^ 
and  gossip,  and  rendered  criticism,  whether  helpful  or 
captious,  impossible.  It  also  drove  into  outer  darkness 
those  Allied  states  whose  interests  were  described  as 
limited,  as  though  the  interests  of  Italy,  whose  delegate 
was  nominally  one  of  the  privileged  five,  were  not  being 
treated  as  more  limited  still.  But  the  point  of  this  last 
criticism  would  be  blunted  if,  as  some  French  and  Italian 
observers  alleged,  the  deliberate  aim  of  the  "representa- 
tives of  the  twelve  million  soldiers"  was  indeed  to  enable 
peace  to  be  concluded  and  the  world  resettled  congruously 
with  the  conceptions  and  in  harmony  with  the  interests 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  peoples.  But  the  supposition  is 
gratuitous.  There  was  no  such  deliberate  plan.  After 
the  establishment  of  the  Council  of  Five,  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  and  Mr.  Wilson  made  short  work  of  the  reports 

^  Quoted  in  the  Paris  Temps  of  March  28,  1919. 

125 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

of  the  expert  commissions  whenever  these  put  forward 
reasoned  views  differing  from  their  own.  In  a  word,  they 
became  the  world's  supreme  and  secret  arbiters  without 
ceasing  to  be  the  official  champions  of  the  freedom  of  the 
lesser  states  and  of  "open  covenants  openly  arrived  at." 
They  constituted,  so  to  say,  the  living  synthesis  of 
contradictories. 

The  Council  of  Five  then  was  a  superlatively  secret 
body.  No  secretaries  were  admitted  to  its  gatherings  and 
no  official  minutes  of  its  proceedings  were  recorded. 
Communications  were  never  issued  to  the  press.  It  re- 
sembled a  gang  of  benevolent  conspirators,  whose  debates 
and  resolutions  were  swallowed  up  by  darkness  and 
mystery.  Even  the  most  modest  meeting  of  a  provincial 
taxpayers'  association  keeps  minutes  of  its  discussions. 
The  world  parliament  kept  none.  Eschewing  traditional 
usages,  as  became  naive  shapers  of  the  new  world,  and 
ignoring  history,  the  Five,  Four,  or  Three  shut  themselves 
,  up  in  a  room,  talked  informally  and  disconnectedly  with- 
out a  common  principle,  program,  or  method,  and  sepa- 
rated again  without  having  reached  a  conclusion.  It  is 
said  that  when  one  put  forth  an  idea,  another  would 
comment  upon  it,  a  third  might  demur,  and  that  some- 
times an  appeal  would  be  made  to  geography,  history,  or 
ethnography,  and  as  the  data  were  not  immediately 
accessible  either  competent  specialists  were  sent  for  or  the 
conversation  took  another  turn.  They  very  naturally 
refused  to  allow  these  desultory  proceedings  to  be  put  on 
record,  the  only  concession  which  they  granted  to  the 
curiosity  of  future  generations  being  the  fixation  of  their 
own  physical  features  by  photography  and  painting. 
When  the  sitting  was  over,  therefore,  no  one  could  be 
held  to  aught  that  he  had  said ;  there  was  nothing  to  bind 
any  of  the  individual  delegates  to  the  views  he  had  ex- 
pressed, nor  was  there  anything  to  mark  the  line  to  which 

126 


CENSORSHIP  AND  SECRECY 

the  Council  as  a  whole  had  advanced.  Each  one  was  free 
to  dictate  to  his  secretary  his  recollections  of  what  had 
gone  on,  but  as  these  precis  were  given  from  memory  they 
necessarily  differed  one  from  the  other  on  various  impor- 
tant points.  On  the  following  morning,  or  a  few  days 
later,  the  world's  workers  would  meet  again,  and  either 
begin  at  the  beginning,  traveling  over  the  same  familiar 
field,  or  else  break  fresh  ground.  In  this  way  in  one  day 
they  are  said  to  have  skimmed  the  problems  of  Spitzbergen, 
Morocco,  Dantzig,  and  the  feeding  of  the  enemy  popula- 
tions, leaving  each  problem  where  they  had  found  it. 
The  moment  the  discussion  of  a  contentious  question  ap- 
proached a  climax,  the  specter  of  disagreement  deterred 
them  from  pursuing  it  to  a  conclusion,  and  they  passed 
on  quickly  to  some  other  question.  And  when,  after 
months  had  been  spent  in  these  Penelopean  labors,  definite 
decisions  respecting  the  peace  had  to  be  taken  lest  the 
impatient  people  should  rise  up  and  wrest  matters  into 
their  own  hands,  the  delegates  referred  the  various  prob- 
lems which  they  had  been  unable  to  solve  to  the  wisdom 
and  tact  of  the  future  League  of  Nations. 

When  misunderstandings  arose  as  to  what  had  been  said 
or  done  it  was  the  official  translator,  M.  Paul  Mantoux — 
one  of  the  most  brilliant  representatives  of  Jewry  at  the 
Conference — who  was  wont  to  decide,  his  memory  being 
reputed  superlatively  tenacious.  In  this  way  he  attained 
the  distinction  of  which  his  friends  are  justly  proud, 
of  being  a  living  record — indeed,  the  sole  available  record — 
of  what  went  on  at  the  historic  council.  He  was  the  re- 
cipient and  is  now  the  only  repository  of  all  the  secrets  of 
which  the  plenipotentiaries  were  so  jealous,  lest,  being  a 
kind  of  knowledge  which  is  in  verity  power,  it  should  be 
used  one  day  for  some  dubious  purpose.  But  M.  Man- 
toux enjoyed  the  esteem  and  confidence  not  only  of 
Mr.  Wilson,  but  also  of  the  British  Prime  Minister,  who, 

127 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

it  was  generally  believed,  drew  from  his  entertaining 
narratives  and  shrewd  appreciations  whatever  informa- 
tion he  possessed  about  French  politics  and  politicians. 
It  was  currently  affirmed  that,  being  a  man  of  method 
and  foresight,  M.  Mantoux  committed  everything  to 
writing  for  his  own  behoof.  Doubts,  however,  were  en- 
tertained and  publicly  expressed  as  to  whether  affairs  of 
this  magnitude,  involving  the  destinies  of  the  world, 
should  have  been  handled  in  such  secret  and  unbusiness- 
like fashion.  But  on  the  supposition  that  the  general 
outcome,  if  not  the  preconceived  aim,  of  the  policy  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  plenipotentiaries  was  to  confer  the  beneficent 
hegemony  of  the  world  upon  its  peoples,  there  could,  it 
was  argued,  be  no  real  danger  in  the  procedure  followed. 
For,  united,  those  nations  have  nothing  to  fear. 

Although  the  translations  were  done  rapidly,  elegantly, 
and  lucidly,  allegations  were  made  that  they  lost  some- 
what by  undue  compression  and  even  by  the  process 
of  toning  down,  of  which  the  praiseworthy  object  was  to 
spare  delicate  susceptibilities.  For  a  limited  number 
of  delicate  susceptibilities  were  treated  considerately  by 
the  Conference.  A  defective  rendering  made  a  curious 
impression  on  the  hearers  once,  when  a  delegate  said: 
"My  country,  unfortunately,  is  situated  in  the  midst  of 
states  which  are  anything  but  peace-loving — in  fact,  the 
chief  danger  to  the  peace  of  Europe  emanates  from  them.'* 
M.  Mantoux's  translation  ran,  "The  country  repre- 
sented by  M.  X.  unhappily  presents  the  greatest  danger 
to  the  peace  of  Europe." 

On  several  occasions  passages  of  the  discourses  of  the 
plenipotentiaries  underwent  a  certain  transformation 
in  the  well-informed  brain  of  M.  Mantoux  before  being 
done  into  another  language.  They  were  plunged,  so  to 
say,  in  the  stream  of  history  before  their  exposure  to  the 
light  of  day.     This  was  especially   the  case  with   the 

128 


CENSORSHIP  AND  SECRECY 

remarks  of  the  English-speaking  delegates,  some  of  whom 
were  wont  to  make  extensive  use  of  the  license  taken  by 
their  great  national  poet  in  matters  of  geography  and 
history.  One  of  them,  for  example,  when  alluding  to  the 
ex-Emperor  Franz  Josef  and  his  successor,  said:  "It 
would  be  unjust  to  visit  the  sins  of  the  father  on  the  head 
of  his  innocent  son.  Charles  I  should  not  be  made  to 
suffer  for  Franz  Josef."  M.  Mantoux  rendered  the  sen- 
tence, "It  would  be  unjust  to  visit  the  sins  of  the  uncle 
on  the  innocent  nephew,"  and  M.  Clemenceau,  with  a 
merry  twinkle  in  his  eye,  remarked  to  the  ready  inter- 
preter, "You  will  lose  your  job  if  you  go  on  making  these 
wrong  translations." 

But  those  details  are  interesting,  if  at  all,  only  as  means 
of  eking  out  a  mere  sketch  which  can  never  become  a 
complete  and  faithful  picture.  It  was  the  desire  of  the 
eminent  lawgivers  that  the  source  of  the  most  beneficent 
reforms  chronicled  in  history  should  be  as  well  hidden  as 
those  of  the  greatest  boon  bestowed  by  Providence  upon 
man.  And  their  motives  appear  to  have  been  sound 
enough. 

The  pains  thus  taken  to  create  a  haze  between  them- 
selves and  the  peoples  whose  implicit  confidence  they  were 
continuously  craving  constitute  one  of  the  most  striking 
ethico-psychological  phenomena  of  the  Conference.  They 
demanded  unreasoning  faith  as  well  as  blind  obedience. 
Any  statement,  however  startling,  was  expected  to  carry 
conviction  once  it  bore  the  official  hall-mark.  Take,  for 
example,  the  demand  made  by  the  Supreme  Four  to 
Bela  Kuhn  to  desist  from  his  offensive  against  the  Slovaks. 
The  press  expressed  surprise  and  disappointment  that  he, 
a  Bolshevist,  should  have  been  invited  even  hypothet- 
ically  by  the  "deadly  enemies  of  Bolshevism"  to  delegate 
representatives  to  the  Paris  Conference  from  which  the 
leaders  of  the  Russian  constructive  elements  were  ex- 

129 


The  inside  story  of  the  peace  conference 

eluded.  Thereupon  the  Supreme  Four,  which  had  taken 
the  step  in  secret,  had  it  denied  categorically  that  such 
an  invitation  had  been  issued.  The  press  was  put  up  to 
state  that,  far  from  making  such  an  undignified  advance, 
the  Council  had  asserted  its  authority  and  peremptorily 
summoned  the  misdemeanant  Kuhn  to  withdraw  his 
troops  immediately  from  Slovakia  under  heavy  pains  and 
penalties. 

Subsequently,  however,  the  official  correspondence  was 
published,  when  it  was  seen  that  the  implicit  invitation 
had  really  been  issued  and  that  the  denial  ran  directly 
counter  to  fact.  By  this  exposure  the  Council  of  Four, 
which  still  sued  for  the  full  confidence  of  their  peoples, 
was  somewhat  embarrassed.  This  embarrassment  was  not 
allayed  when  what  purported  to  be  a  correct  explanation 
of  their  action  was  given  out  and  privately  circulated 
by  a  group  which  claimed  to  be  initiated.  It  was  sum- 
marized as  follows:  '"'The  Israelite,  Bela  Kuhn,  who  is 
leading  Hungary  to  destruction,  has  been  heartened  by 
the  Supreme  Council's  indulgent  message.  People  are  at 
a  loss  to  understand  why,  if  the  Conference  believes, 
as  it  has  asserted,  that  Bolshevism  is  the  greatest  scourge 
of  latter-day  humanity,  it  ordered  the  Rumanian  troops, 
when  nearing  Budapest  for  the  purpose  of  overthrowing 
it  in  that  stronghold,  first  to  halt,  and  then  to  withdraw.^ 
The  clue  to  the  mystery  has  at  last  been  found  in  a  secret 
arrangement  between  Kuhn  and  a  certain  financial  group 
concerning  the  Banat.  About  this  more  will  be  said  later. 
In  one  of  my  own  cablegrams  to  the  United  States  I  wrote : 
"People  are  everywhere  murmuring  and  whispering  that 
beneath  the  surface  of  things  powerful  undercurrents 
are  flowing  which  invisibly  sway  the  policy  of  the 
secret    council,   and   the   public   believes   that   this   ac- 

*  Thiii  explanation  deals  exclusively  with  the  first  advance  of  the  Ru- 
manian army  into  Hungary. 

130 


CENSORSHIP  AND   SECRECY     e 

counts  for  the  sinister  vacillation  and  delay  of  which  it 
complains."  ^ 

In  the  fragmentary  utterances  of  the  governments  and 
their  press  organs  nobody  placed  the  slightest  confidence. 
Their  testimony  was  discredited  in  advance,  on  grounds 
which  they  were  unable  to  weaken.  The  following 
example  is  at  once  amusing  and  instructive.  The  French 
Parliamentary  Committee  of  the  Budget,  having  asked 
the  government  for  communication  of  the  section  of  the 
Peace  Treaty  dealing  with  finances,  were  told  that  their 
demand  could  not  be  entertained,  every  clause  of  the 
Treaty  being  a  state  secret.  The  Committee  on  Foreign 
Affairs  made  a  like  request,  with  the  same  results.  The 
entire  Chamber  next  expressed  a  similar  wish,  which 
elicited  a  firm  refusal.  The  French  Premier,  it  should  be 
added,  alleged  a  reason  which  was  at  least  specious. 
"I  should  much  like,"  he  said,  "to  communicate  to  you 
the  text  you  ask  for,  but  I  may  not  do  so  until  it  has  been 
signed  by  the  President  of  the  Republic.  For  such  is  the 
law  as  embodied  in  Article  8  of  the  Constitution."  Now 
nobody  believed  that  this  was  the  true  ground  for  his 
refusal.  His  explanation,  however,  w^as  construed  as  a 
courteous  conventionality,  and  as  such  was  accepted. 
But  once  alleged,  the  fiction  should  have  been  respected, 
at  any  rate  by  its  authors.  It  was  not.  A  few  weeks 
later  the  Premier  ordered  the  publication  of  the  text  of 
the  Treaty,  although,  in  the  meantime,  it  had  not  been 
signed  by  M.  Poincare.  "The  excuse  founded  upon 
Article  8  was,  therefore,  a  mere  humbug,"  flippantly 
wrote  an  influential  journal. - 

An  amusing  joke,  which  tickled  all  Paris,  was  per- 
petrated shortly  afterward.  The  editor  of  the  Bonsoir 
imported   six   hundred   copies   of   the   forbidden   Treaty 

1  Cabled  to  The  Public  Ledger  of  Philadelphia,  April  20,  19 19. 
^  Bonsoir,  June  21,  191 9. 

10  131 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

from  Switzerland,  and  sent  them  as  a  present  to  the 
Deputies  of  the  Chamber,  whereupon  the  parhamentary 
authorities  posted  up  a  notice  informing  all  Deputies  who 
desired  a  copy  to  call  at  the  questor's  office,  where  they 
would  receive  it  gratuitously  as  a  present  from  the  Bonsoir. 
Accordingly  the  Deputies,  including  the  Speaker,  Descha- 
nel,  thronged  to  the  questor's  office.  Even  solemn-faced 
Ministers  received  a  copy  of  the  thick  volume  which  I 
possessed  ever  since  the  day  it  was  issued. 

Another  glaring  instance  of  the  lack  of  straightforward- 
ness which  vitiated  the  dealings  of  the  Conference  with  the 
public  turned  upon  the  Bullitt  mission  to  Russia.  Mr. 
Wilson,  who  in  the  depths  of  his  heart  seems  to  have 
cherished  a  vague  fondness  for  the  Bolshevists  there, 
which  he  sometimes  manifested  in  utterances  that  startled 
the  foreigners  to  whom  they  were  addressed,  despatched 
through  Colonel  House  some  fellow-countrymen  of  his  to 
Moscow  to  ask  for  peace  proposals  which,  according  to 
the  Moscow  government,  were  drafted  by  himself  and 
Messrs.  House  and  Lansing.  Mr.  Bullitt,  however,  who 
must  know,  affirms  that  the  draft  was  written  by  Mr. 
Lloyd  George's  secretary,  Mr.  Philip  Kerr,  and  himself  and 
presented  to  Lenin  by  Messrs.  Bullitt,  Steffins,  and  Petit. 
If  the  terms  of  this  document  should  prove  acceptable  the 
American  envoys  were  empowered  to  promise  that  an 
official  invitation  to  a  new  peace  conference  would  be  sent 
to  them  as  well  as  to  their  opponents  by  April  15th.  The 
conditions — eleven  in  number — with  a  few  slight  modifica- 
tions in  which  the  Americans  acquiesced — were  accepted  by 
the  dictator,  who  was  bound,  however,  not  to  permit  their 
publication.  The  facts  remained  secret  until  Mr.  Bullitt, 
thrown  over  by  Mr.  Wilson,  who  recoiled  from  taking  the 
final  and  decisive  step,  resigned,  and  in  a  letter  reproduced 
by  the  press  set  forth  the  reasons  for  his  decision.^ 

1  Cf.  The  Daily  News,  July  5,  1919.     L'Humatiite,  July  8,  1919. 

132 


CENSORSHIP  AND  SECRECY 

Now,  vague  reports  that  there  was  such  a  mission  had 
found  its  way  into  the  Paris  newspapers  at  a  relatively 
early  date.  But  an  authoritative  denial  was  published 
without  delay.  The  statement,  the  public  was  assured, 
was  without  foundation.  And  the  public  believed  the 
assurance,  for  it  was  confirmed  authoritatively  in  Eng- 
land. Sir  Samuel  Hoare,  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
asked  for  information  about  a  report  that  "two  Americans 
have  recently  returned  from  Russia  bringing  offers  of 
peace  from  Lenin,"  and  received  from  Mr.  Bonar  Law 
this  noteworthy  reply:  "I  have  said  already  that  there  is 
not  the  shadow  of  foundation  for  this  information,  other- 
wise I  would  have  known  it.  Moreover,  I  have  com- 
municated with  Mr.  Lloyd  George  in  Paris,  who  also 
declares  that  he  knows  nothing  about  the  matter."  ^ 
E  pur  si  muove.  Mr.  Lloyd  George  knew  nothing  about 
President  Wilson's  determination  to  have  the  Covenant 
inserted  in  the  Peace  Treaty,  even  after  the  announce- 
ment was  published  to  the  world  by  the  Havas  Agency, 
and  the  confirmation  given  to  pressmen  by  Lord  Robert 
Cecil.  The  systemi  of  reticence  and  concealment,  coupled 
with  the  indifference  of  this  or  that  delegation  to  questions 
in  which  it  happened  to  take  no  special  interest,  led  to 
these  unseemly  air-tight  compartments. 

From  this  rank  soil  of  secrecy,  repression,  and  unve- 
racity  sprang  noxious  weeds.  False  reports  and  menda- 
cious insinuations  were  launched,  spread,  and  credited, 
impairing  such  prestige  as  the  Conference  still  enjoyed, 
while  the  fragmentary  announcements  ventured  on  now 
and  again  by  the  delegates,  in  sheer  self-defense,  were 
summarily  dismissed  as  "eye-wash"  for  the  public. 

For  a  time  the  disharmony  between  words  and  deeds 
passed  unnoticed  by  the  bulk  of  the  masses,  who  were 
edified   by   the  one  and  unacquainted  with   the  other. 

^  Cf.  The  New  York  Herald  (Paris  edition),  April  4,  1919. 

133 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

But  gradually  the  lack  of  consistency  in  policy  and  of 
manly  straightforwardness  and  moral  wholeness  in  method 
became  apparent  to  all  and  produced  untoward  conse- 
quences. Mr.  Wilson,  whose  authority  and  influence  were 
supposed  to  be  paramount,  came  in  for  the  lion's  share  of 
criticism,  except  in  the  Polish  policy  of  the  Conference, 
which  was  traced  to  Mr.  Lloyd  George  and  his  unofficial 
prompters.  The  American  press  was  the  most  censorious 
of  all.  One  American  journal  appearing  in  Paris  gave 
utterance  to  the  following  comments  on  the  President's 
role:  ^ 

President  Wilson  is  conscious  of  his  power  of  persuasion.  That 
power  enables  him  to  say  one  thing,  do  another,  describe  the  act  as 
conforming  to  the  idea,  and,  with  act  and  idea  in  exact  contradiction 
to  each  other,  convince  the  people,  not  only  that  he  has  been  consistent 
throughout,  but  that  his  act  cannot  be  altered  without  peril  to  the 
nation  and  danger  to  the  world. 

We  do  not  know  which  Mr.  Wilson  to  follow — the  Mr.  Wilson  who 
says  he  will  not  do  a  thing  or  the  Mr.  Wilson  who  does  that  precise 
thing. 

A  great  many  Americans  have  one  fixed  idea.  That  idea  is  that  the 
President  is  the  only  magnanimous,  clear-visioned,  broad-minded 
statesman  in  the  United  States,  or  the  entire  world,  for  that  matter. 

When  he  uses  his  powers  of  persuasion  Americans  become  as  the 
children  of  Hamelin  Town.  Inasmuch  as  Mr.  Wilson  of  the  word 
and  Mr.  Wilson  of  the  deed  seem  at  times  to  be  two  distinct  identities, 
some  of  his  most  enthusiastic  supporters  for  the  League  of  Nations, 
being  unfortunately  gifted  with  memory  and  perception,  are  fairly 
standing  on  their  heads  in  dismay. 

And  yet  Mr.  Wilson  himself  was  a  victim  of  the  policy 
of  reticence  and  concealment  to  which  the  Great  Powers 
were  incurably  addicted.  At  the  time  when  they  were 
moving  heaven  and  earth  to  induce  him  to  break  with 
Germany  and  enter  the  war,  they  withheld  from  him  the 
existence  of  their  secret  treaties.  Possibly  it  may  not  be 
thought  fair  to  apply  the  test  of  ethical  fastidiousness  to 

i  ThQ  Chicago  Tribune  (Paris  edition),  July  31,  1919. 

134 


CENSORSHIP  AND  SECRECY 

their  method  of  bringing  the  United  States  to  their  side, 
and  to  their  unwillingness  to  run  the  risk  of  alienating  the 
President.  But  it  appears  that  until  the  close  of  hos- 
tility the  secret  was  kept  inviolate,  nor  was  it  until  Mr. 
Wilson  reached  the  shores  of  Europe  for  the  purpose  of 
executing  his  project  that  he  Vv-as  faced  with  the  huge 
obstacles  to  his  scheme  arising  out  of  those  far-reaching 
commitments.  With  this  depressing  revelation  and  the 
British  non  possunnis  to  his  demand  for  the  freedom  of 
the  seas,  Mr.  Wilson's  practical  difficulties  began.  It 
was  probably  on  that  occasion  that  he  resolved,  seeing 
that  he  could  not  obtain  everything  he  wanted,  to  content 
himself  with  the  best  he  could  get.  And  that  was  not  a 
society  of  peoples,  but  a  rough  approximation  to  the 
hegemony  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  nations. 


V 

AIMS   AND    METHODS 

THE  policy  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  plenipotentiaries  was 
never  put  into  words.  For  that  reason  it  has  to 
be  judged  by  their  acts,  despite  the  circumstance  that 
these  were  determined  by  motives  which  varied  greatly  at 
different  times,  and  so  far  as  one  can  conjecture  were 
not  often  practical  corollaries  of  fundamental  principles. 
From  these  acts  one  may  draw  a  few  conclusions  which 
will  enable  us  to  reconstruct  such  policy  as  there  was. 
One  is  that  none  of  the  sacrifices  imposed  upon  the  mem- 
bers of  the  League  of  Nations  was  obligatory  on  the 
Anglo-Saxon  peoples.  These  were  beyond  the  reach  of 
all  the  new  canons  which  might  clash  with  their  interests 
or  run  counter  to  their  aspirations.  They  were  the  givers 
and  administrators  of  the  saving  law  rather  than  its  ob- 
servers. Consequently  they  were  free  to  hold  all  that  was 
theirs,  however  doubtful  their  title;  nay,  they  were  be- 
sought to  accept  a  good  deal  more  under  the  mandatory 
system,  which  was  molded  on  their  own  methods  of 
governance.  It  was  especially  taken  for  granted  that  the 
architects  would  be  called  to  contribute  naught  to  the 
new  structure  but  their  ideas,  and  that  they  need  renounce 
none  of  their  possessions,  however  shady  its  origin,  how- 
ever galling  to  the  population  its  retention.  It  was  in 
deference  to  this  implicit  doctrine  that  President  Wilson 
withdrew  without  protest  or  discussion  his  demand  for 
the  freedom  of  the  seas,  on  which  he  had  been  wont  to  lay 
such  stress. 

136 


AIMS  AND  METHODS 

Another  way  of  putting  the  matter  is  this.  The  prin- 
]  cipal  aim  of  the  Conference  was  to  create  conditions 
i  favorable  to  the  progress  of  civihzation  on  new  hnes. 
And  the  seed-bearers  of  true,  as  distinguished  from  spuri- 
',ous,  civihzation  and  culture  being  the  Anglo-Saxons,  it 
is  the  realization  of  their  broad  conceptions,  the  further- 
ance of  their  beneficent  strivings,  that  are  most  conducive 
to  that  ulterior  aim.  The  men  of  this  race  in  the  widest 
sense  of  the  term  are,  therefore,  so  to  say,  independent 
ends  in  themselves,  whereas  the  other  peoples  are  to  be 
utilized  as  means.  Hence  the  difference  of  treatment 
meted  out  to  the  two  categories.  In  the  latter  were  im- 
plicitly included  Italy  and  Russia.  Unquestionably  the 
influence  of  Anglo-Saxondom  is  eminently  beneficial.  It 
tends  to  bring  the  rights  and  the  dignity  as  well  as  the 
duties  of  humanity  into  broad  day.  The  farther  it  ex- 
tends by  natural  growth,  therefore,  the  better  for  the 
human  race.  The  Anglo-Saxon  mode  of  administering 
colonies,  for  instance,  is  exemplary,  and  for  this  reason 
was  deemed  worth}^  to  receive  the  hall-mark  of  the  Con- 
ference as  one  of  the  institutions  of  the  future  League. 
But  even  benefits  may  be  transformed  into  evils  if  im- 
posed by  force. 

That,  in  brief,  would  seem  to  be  the  clue — one  can 
hardly  speak  of  any  systematic  conception — to  the  un- 
ordered improvisations  and  incongruous  decisions  of  the 
Conference. 

I  am  not  now  concerned  to  discuss  whether  this  unfor- 
mulated maxim,  which  had  strong  roots  that  may  not 
always  have  reached  the  realm  of  consciousness,  calls  for 
approval  as  an  instrument  of  ethico-political  progress  or 
connotes  an  impoverishment  of  the  aims  originally  pro- 
pounded by  Mr.  Wilson.  Excellent  reasons  may  be 
assigned  why  the  two  English-speaking  statesmen  pro- 
ceeded without  deliberation  on  these  lines  and  no  other. 

137 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

The  matter  might  have  been  raised  to  a  higher  plane,  but 
for  that  the  delegates  were  not  prepared.  All  that  one 
need  retain  at  present  is  the  orientation  of  the  Supreme 
Council,  inasmuch  as  it  imparts  a  sort  of  relative  unity  to 
seemingly  heterogeneous  acts.  Thus,  although  the  con- 
ditions of  the  Peace  Treaty  in  many  respects  ran  directly 
counter  to  the  provisions  of  the  Covenant,  none  the  less 
the  ultimate  tendency  of  both  was  to  converge  in  a  dis- 
tant point,  which,  when  clearly  discerned,  will  turn  out  to 
be  the  moral  guidance  of  the  world  by  Anglo-Saxondom 
as  represented  at  any  rate  in  the  incipient  stage  by  both 
its  branches.  Thus  the  discussions  among  the  members 
of  the  Conference  were  in  last  analysis  not  contests  about 
mere  abstractions.  Beneath  the  high-sounding  principles 
and  far-resonant  reforms  which  were  propounded  but  not 
realized  lurked  concrete  racial  strivings  which  a  patriotic 
temper  and  robust  faith  might  easily  identify  with  the 
highest  interests  of  humanity. 

When  the  future  historian  defines,  as  he  probably  will, 
the  main  result  of  the  Conference's  labors  as  a  tendency 
to  place  the  spiritual  and  political  direction  of  the  world 
in  the  hands  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  it  is  essential  to  a 
correct  view  of  things  that  he  should  not  regard  this  trend 
as  the  outcome  of  a  deliberate  concerted  policy.  It  was 
anything  but  this.  Nobody  who  conversed  with  the 
statesmen  before  and  during  the  Conference  could  detect 
any  sure  tokens  of  such  ultimate  aims,  nor,  indeed,  of  a 
thorough  understanding  of  the  lesser  problems  to  be  set- 
tled. Circumstance  led,  and  the  statesmen  followed. 
The  historian  may  term  the  process  drift,  and  the  humani- 
tarian regret  that  such  momentous  issues  should  ever  have 
been  submitted  to  a  body  of  uninformed  politicians  out 
of  touch  with  the  people  for  whose  behoof  they  claimed 
to  be  legislating.  To  liquidate  the  war  should  have  been 
the  first,  as  it  was  the  most  urgent,  task.    But  it  was  com- 

13B 


AIMS  AND  METHODS 

plicated,  adjourned,  and  finally  botched  by  interweaving 
it  with  a  mutilated  scheme  for  the  complete  readjustment 
of  the  politico-social  forces  of  the  planet.  The  result  was 
a  tangled  skein  of  problems,  most  of  them  still  unsolved, 
and  some  insoluble  by  governments  alone.  Out  of  the 
confusion  of  clashing  forces  towered  aloft  the  two  domi- 
nant Powers  who  command  the  economic  resources  of  the 
world,  and  whose  democratic  institutions  and  internal 
ordering  are  uncjuestionably  more  conducive  to  the  large 
humanitarian  end  than  those  of  any  other,  and  gradually 
their  overlordship  of  the  world  began  to  assert  itself. 
But  this  tendency  was  not  the  outcome  of  deliberate 
endeavor.  Each  representative  of  those  vast  states  was 
solicitous  in  the  first  place  about  the  future  of  his  own 
country,  and  then  about  the  regeneration  of  the  human 
race.  One  would  like  to  be  able  to  add  that  all  were 
wholly  inaccessible  to  the  promptings  of  party  interests 
and  personal  ambitions. 

Planlessness  naturally  characterized  the  exertions  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  delegates  from  start  to  finish.  It  is  a 
racial  trait.  Their  hosts,  who  were  experts  in  the  tra- 
ditions of  diplomacy,  had  before  the  opening  of  the  Con- 
ference prepared  a  plan  for  their  behoof,  which  at  the 
lowest  estimate  would  have  connoted  a  vast  improvement 
on  their  own  desultory  way  of  proceeding.  The  French 
proposed  to  distribute  all  the  preparatory  work  among 
eighteen  commissions,  leaving  to  the  chief  plenipotentiaries 
the  requisite  time  to  arrange  preliminaries  and  become 
acquainted  with  the  essential  elements  of  the  problems. 
But  Messrs.  Wilson  and  Lloyd  George  are  said  to  have 
preferred  their  informal  conversations,  involving  the  loss 
of  three  and  a  half  months,  during  which  no  results  were 
reached  in  Paris,  while  turmoil,  bloodshed,  and  hunger 
fed  the  smoldering  fires  of  discontent  throughout  the 
world. 

139 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

The  British  Premier,  Hke  his  French  colleague,  was 
solicitous  chiefly  about  making  peace  with  the  enemy 
and  redeeming  as  far  as  possible  his  election  pledges  to  his 
supporters.  To  that  end  everything  else  would  appear  to 
have  been  subordinated.  To  the  ambitious  project  of  a 
world  reform  he  and  M.  Clemenceau  gave  what  was 
currently  construed  as  a  nominal  assent,  but  for  a  long 
time  they  had  no  inkling  of  Mr.  Wilson's  intention  to 
interweave  the  peace  conditions  with  the  Covenant.  So 
far,  indeed,  were  they  both  from  entertaining  the  notion 
that  the  two  Premiers  expressly  denied — and  allowed 
their  denial  to  be  circulated  in  the  press — ^that  the  two 
documents  were  or  could  be  made  mutually  interdepen- 
dent. M.  Pichon  assured  a  group  of  journalists  that  no 
such  intention  was  harbored.^  Mr.  Lloyd  George  is 
understood  to  have  gone  farther  and  to  have  asked  what 
degree  of  relevancy  a  Covenant  for  the  members  of  the 
League  could  be  supposed  to  possess  to  a  treaty  concluded 
with  a  nation  which  for  the  time  being  was  denied  admis- 
sion to  that  sodality.  And  as  we  saw,  he  was  incurious 
enough  not  to  read  the  narrative  of  what  had  been  done 
by  his  own  American  colleagues  even  after  the  Havas 
Agency  announced  it. 

To  President  V/ilson,  on  the  other  hand,  the  League 
was  the  magmim  opus  of  his  life.  It  was  to  be  the  crown 
of  his  political  career,  to  mark  the  attainment  of  an  end 
toward  which  all  that  was  best  in  the  human  race  had  for 
centuries  been  consciously  or  unconsciously  wending 
without  moving  perceptibly  nearer.  Instinctively  he 
must  have  felt  that  the  Laodicean  support  given  to  him 
by  his  colleagues  would  not  carry  him  much  farther  and 
that  their  fervor  would  speedily  evaporate  once  the  Con- 
ference broke  up  and  their  own  special  aims  were  definitely 
achieved  or  missed.     With  the  shrewdness  of  an  experi- 

1  In  March. 

140 


AIMS  AND  METHODS 

enced  politician  he  grasped  the  fact  that  if  he  was  ever 
to  present  his  Covenant  to  the  world  clothed  with  the 
authority  of  the  mightiest  states,  now  was  his  opportunity. 
After  the  Conference  it  would  be  too  late.  And  the  only 
contrivance  by  which  he  could  sui-ely  reckon  on  success 
was  to  insert  the  Covenant  in  the  Peace  Treaty  and  set 
before  his  colleagues  an  irresistible  incentive  for  elaborat- 
ing both  at  the  same  time. 

He  had  an  additional  motive  for  these  tactics  in  the 
attitude  of  a  section  of  his  own  countrymen.  Before 
starting  for  Paris  he  had,  as  we  saw,  made  an  appeal  to 
the  electorate  to  return  to  the  legislature  only  candidates 
of  his  own  party  to  the  exclusion  of  Republicans,  and  the 
result  fell  out  contrary  to  his  expectations.  Thereupon 
the  oppositional  elements  increased  in  numbers  and  dis- 
played a  marked  combative  disposition.  Even  moderate 
Republicans  complained  in  terms  akin  to  those  employed 
by  ex-President  Taft  of  Mr.  Wilson's  "partizan  exclusion 
of  Republicans  in  dealing  with  the  highly  important 
matter  of  settling  the  results  of  the  war.  He  solicited  a 
commission  in  which  the  Republicans  had  no  representa- 
tion and  in  which  there  were  no  prominent  Americans 
of  any  real  experience  and  leadership  of  public  opinion."  ^ 

The  leaders  of  this  opposition  sharply  watched  the 
policy  of  the  President  at  the  Conference  and  made  no 
secret  of  their  resolve  to  utilize  any  serious  slip  as  a 
handle  for  revising  or  rejecting  the  outcome  of  his  labors. 
Seeing  his  cherished  cause  thus  trembling  in  the  scale, 
Mr.  Wilson  hit  upon  the  expedient  of  linking  the  Covenant 
with  the  Peace  Treaty  and  making  of  the  two  an  insepa- 
rable whole.  He  announced  this  determination  in  a 
forcible  speech^  to  his  o^vn  countrymen,  in  which  he  said, 

^  Quoted  by  The  Chicago  Tribtme  (Paris  edition),  August  lo,  1919. 
^  Delivered  at  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House  in  New  York  on  March 
4,  1919. 

141 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

"When  the  Treaty  comes  back,  gentlemen  on  this  side 
wdll  -find  the  Covenant  not  only  in  it,  but  so  many  threads 
of  the  Treaty  tied  to  the  Covenant  that  you  cannot  dissect 
the  Covenant  from  the  Treaty  without  destroying  the 
whole  vital  structure."  This  scheme  was  denounced  by 
Mr.  Vfilson's  opponents  as  a  trick,  but  the  historian  will 
remember  it  as  a  maneuver,  which,  however  blameless  or 
meritorious  its  motive,  was  fraught  with  lamentable 
consequences  for  all  the  peoples  for  whose  interests  the 
President  was  sincerely  solicitous.  To  take  but  one 
example.  The  misgivings  generated  by  the  Covenant 
delayed  the  ratification  of  the  Peace  Treaty  by  the  United 
States  Senate,  in  consequence  of  which  the  Turkish 
problem  had  to  be  postponed  until  the  Washington 
government  was  authorized  to  accept  or  compelled  to 
refuse  a  mandate  for  the  Sultan's  dominions,  and  in  the 
meanwhile  mass  massacres  of  Greeks  and  Armenians 
were  organized  anew. 

A  large  section  of  the  press  and  the  majority  of  the 
delegates  strongly  condemned  the  interpolation  of  the 
Covenant.  What  they  demanded  was  first  the  conclusion 
of  a  solid  peace  and  then  the  establishment  of  suitable 
international  safeguards.  For  to  be  safeguarded,  peace 
must  first  exist.  "A  suit  of  armor  without  the  warrior 
inside  is  but  a  useless  ornament,"  wrote  one  of  the 
American  journals.^ 

But  the  course  advocated  by  Mr.  Wilson  was  open  to 
another  direct  and  telling  objection.  Peace  between  the 
belligerent  adversaries  was,  in  the  circumstances,  con- 
ceivable only  on  the  old  lines  of  strategic  frontiers  and 
military  guaranties.  The  Supreme  Council  implied  as 
much  in  its  official  reply  to  the  criticisms  offered  by  the 
Austrians  to  the  conditions  imposed  on  them,  making  the 
admission  that  Italy's  new  northern  frontiers  were  de- 

^  Tix  New  York  Herald,  March  19,  1919  (Paris  edition). 

142 


AIMS  AND  METHODS 

termined  by  considerations  of  strategy.  The  plan  for  the 
governance  of  the  world  by  a  league  of  pacific  peoples,  on 
the  other  hand,  postulated  the  abolition  of  war  prepara- 
tions, including  strategic  frontiers.  Consequently  the 
more  satisfactory  the  Treaty  the  more  unfavorable  would 
be  the  outlook  for  the  moral  reconstitution  of  the  family 
of  nations,  and  vice  versa.  And  to  interlace  the  two 
would  be  to  necessitate  a  compromise  which  would  neces- 
sarily mar  both. 

In  effect  the  split  among  the  delegates  respecting  their 
aims  and  interests  led  to  a  tacit  understanding  among  the 
leaders  on  the  basis  of  give-and-take,  the  French  and 
British  acquiescing  in  Mr.  Wilson's  measures  for  working 
out  his  Covenant — the  draft  of  which  was  contributed  by 
the  British — and  the  President  giving  way  to  them  on 
matters  said  to  affect  their  countries'  vital  interests. 
How  smoothly  this  method  worked  when  great  issues  were 
not  at  stake  may  be  inferred  from  the  perfunctory  way 
in  which  it  was  decided  that  the  Kaiser's  trial  should  take 
place  in  London.  A  few  days  before  the  Treaty  was 
signed  there  was  a  pause  in  the  proceedings  of  the  Supreme 
Council  during  which  the  secretary  was  searching  for  a 
mislaid  document.  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  looking  up  casu- 
ally and  without  addressing  any  one  in  particular,  re- 
marked, "I  suppose  none  of  you  has  any  objection  to 
the  Kaiser  being  tried  in  London?"  M.  Clemenceau 
shrugged  his  shoulders,  Mr.  Wilson  raised  his  hand,  and 
the  matter  was  assumed  to  be  settled.  Nothing  more 
was  said  or  written  on  the  subject.  But  when  the  news 
was  announced,  after  the  President's  departure  from 
France,  it  took  the  other  American  delegates  by  surprise 
and  they  disclaimed  all  knowledge  of  any  such  decision. 
On  inquiry,  however,  they  learned  that  the  venue  had 
in  truth  been  fixed  in  this  offhand  way.^ 

1  Cf.  The  New  York  Herald,  July  8,  1919. 

143 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

Mr.  Wilson  found  it  a  hard  task  at  first  to  obtain  ac- 
ceptance for  his  ill-defined  tenets  by  France,  v/ho  declined 
to  accept  the  protection  of  his  League  of  Nations  in 
lieu  of  strategic  frontiers  and  military  guaranties.  Insur- 
mountable obstacles  barred  his  way.  The  French  gov- 
ernment and  people,  while  moved  by  decent  respect  for 
their  American  benefactors^  to  assent  to  the  establishment 
of  a  league,  flatly  refused  to  trust  themselves  to  its  protec- 
tion against  Teuton  aggression.  But  they  were  quite  pre- 
pared to  second  Mr.  Wilson's  endeavors  to  oblige  some 
of  the  other  states  to  content  themselves  with  the  guar- 
anties it  offered,  only,  however,  on  condition  that  their 
own  country  was  first  safeguarded  in  the  traditional  way. 
Territorial  equilibrium  and  military  protection  were  the 
imperative  provisos  on  which  they  insisted.  And  as 
France  was  specially  favored  by  Mr.  Wilson  on  sentimental 
grounds  which  outweighed  his  doctrine,  and  as  she  was 
also  considered  indispensable  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  peoples 
as  their  continental  executive,  she  had  no  difficulty  in 
securing  their  support.  On  this  point,  too,  therefore,  the 
President  found  himself  constrained  to  give  way.  And 
not  only  did  he  abandon  his  humanitarian  intentions  and 
allow  his  strongest  arguments  to  be  lightly  brushed  aside, 
but  he  actually  recoiled  so  far  into  the  camp  of  his  oppo- 
nents that  he  gave  his  approval  to  an  indefensible  clause 
in  the  Treaty  which  would  have  handed  over  to  France 
the  German  population  of  the  Saar  as  the  equivalent  of  a 
certain  sum  in  gold.  Coming  from  the  world-reformer 
who,  a  short  time  before,  had  hurled  the  thunderbolts 
of  his  oratory  against  those  who  would  barter  human 
beings  as  chattels,  this  amazing  compromise  connoted  a 
strange  falling  off.     Incidentally  it  was  destructive  of  all 

'  The  semi-official  journals  manifested  a  steady  tendency  to  lean  toward 
tlie  Republican  opposition  in  the  United  States,  down  to  the  month  of 
August,  when  the  amendments  proposed  by  various  vScnators  bade  fair  to 
jeopardize  the  Treaties  and  render  the  promised  military  succor  doubtful, 

144 


AIMS  AND  METHODS 

faith  in  the  spirit  that  had  actuated  his  world-crusade. 
It  also  went  far  to  convince  unbiased  observers  that  the 
only  framework  of  ideas  with  decisive  reference  to  which 
Mr.  Wilson  considered  every  project  and  every  objection 
as  it  arose,  was  that  which  centered  round  his  own  goal — 
the  establishment,  if  not  of  a  league  of  nations  cemented 
by  brotherhood  and  fellowship,  at  least  of  the  nearest 
approach  to  that  which  he  could  secure,  even  though  it 
fell  far  short  of  the  original  design.  These  were  the  first- 
fruits  of  the  interweaving  of  the  Covenant  with  the 
Treaty. 

In  view  of  this  readiness  to  split  differences  and  sacrifice 
principles  to  expediency  it  became  impossible  even  to  the 
least  observant  of  Mr.  Wilson's  adherents  in  the  Old 
World  to  cling  any  longer  to  the  belief  that  his  cosmic 
policy  was  inspired  by  firm  intellectual  attachment  to  the 
sublime  ideas  of  which  he  had  made  himself  the  eloquent 
exponent  and  had  been  expected  to  make  himself  the 
uncompromising  champion.  In  every  such  surrender  to 
the  Great  Powers,  as  in  every  stern  enforcement  of  his 
principles  on  the  lesser  states,  the  same  practical  spirit  of 
the  professional  politician  visibly  asserted  itself.  One 
can  hardly  acquit  him  of  having  lacked  the  moral  courage 
to  disregard  the  veto  of  interested  statesmen  and  govern- 
ments and  to  appeal  directly  to  the  peoples  when  the  con- 
sequence of  this  attitude  would  have  been  the  sacrifice  of 
the  makeshift  of  a  Covenant  which  he  was  ultimately 
content  to  accept  as  a  substitute  for  the  complete  re- 
instatement of  nations  in  their  rights  and  dignity. 

The  general  tendency  of  the  labors  of  the  Conference 
then  was  shaped  by  those  two  practical  maxims,  the  im- 
munity of  the  Anglo-Saxon  peoples  and  of  their  French 
ally  from  the  restrictions  to  be  imposed  by  the  new 
politico-social  ordering  in  so  far  as  these  ran  counter  to 
their  national  interests,  and  the  determination  of  the 

145 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

American  President  to  get  and  accept  such  a  league  of 
nations  as  was  feasible  under  extremely  inauspicious  con- 
ditions and  to  content  himself  with  that. 

To  this  estimate  exception  may  be  taken  on  the  ground 
that  it  underrates  an  effort  which,  however  insufficient, 
was  well  meant  and  did  at  any  rate  point  the  way  to  a 
just  resettlement  of  secular  problems  which  the  war  had 
made  pressing  and  that  it  fails  to  take  account  of  the 
formidable  obstacles  encountered.  The  answer  is,  that 
like  efforts  had  proceeded  more  than  once  before  from 
rulers  of  men  whose  will,  seeing  that  they  were  credited 
with  possessing  the  requisite  power,  was  assumed  to  be 
adequate  to  the  accomplishment  of  their  aim,  and  that 
they  had  led  to  nothing.  The  two  Tsars,  Alexander  I 
at  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  and  Nicholas  II  at  the  first 
Conference  of  The  Hague,  are  instructive  instances. 
They  also,  like  Mr.  Wilson,  it  is  assumed,  would  fain 
have  inaugurated  a  golden  age  of  international  right  and 
moral  fellowship  if  verbal  exhortations  and  arguments 
could  have  done  it.  The  only  kind  of  fresh  attempt, 
which  after  the  failure  of  those  two  experiments  could 
fairly  lay  claim  to  universal  sympathy,  was  one  which 
should  withdraw  the  proposed  politico-social  rearrange- 
ment from  the  domain  alike  of  rhetoric  and  of  empiricism 
and  substitute  a  thorough  systematic  reform  covering  all 
the  aspects  of  international  intercourse,  including  all  the 
civilized  peoples  on  the  globe,  harmonizing  the  vital 
interests  of  these  and  setting  up  adequate  machinery 
to  deal  with  the  needs  of  this  enlarged  and  unified  state 
system.  And  it  would  be  fruitless  to  seek  for  this  in 
Mr.  Wilson's  handiwork.  Indeed,  it  is  hardly  too  much 
to  affirm  that  empiricism  and  opportunism  were  among 
the  principal  characteristics  of  his  policy  in  Paris,  and 
that  the  outcome  was  what  it  must  be. 

Disputes  and  delays  being  inevitable,  the  Conference 

146 


AIMS  AND  METHODS 

began  its  work  at  leisure  and  was  forced  to  terminate  it 
in  hot  haste.  Having  spent  months  chaffering,  making 
compromises,  and  unmaking  them  again  while  the  peoples 
of  the  world  were  kept  in  painful  suspense,  all  of  them 
condemned  to  incur  ruinous  expenditure  and  some  to 
wage  sanguinary  wars,  the  springs  of  industrial  and  com- 
mercial activity  being  kept  sealed,  the  delegates,  menaced 
by  outbreaks,  revolts,  and  mutinies,  began,  after  months 
had  been  wasted,  to  speed  up  and  get  through  their  work 
without  adequate  deliberation.  They  imagined  that  they 
could  make  up  for  the  errors  of  hesitancy  and  ignorance 
by  moments  of  lightning-hke  improvisation.  Improvisa- 
tion and  haphazard  conclusions  were  among  their  chronic 
failings.  Even  in  the  early  days  of  the  Conference  they 
had  promulgated  decisions,  the  import  and  bearings  of 
which  they  missed,  and  when  possible  they  canceled  them 
again.  Sometimes,  however,  the  error  committed  was 
irreparable.  The  fate  reserved  for  Austria  was  a  case  in 
point.  By  some  curious  process  of  reasoning  it  was 
found  to  be  not  incompatible  with  the  Wilsonian  doctrine 
that  German-Austria  should  be  forbidden  to  throw  in  her 
lot  with  the  German  Republic,  this  prohibition  being  in 
the  interest  of  France,  who  could  not  brook  a  powerful 
united  Teuton  state.  The  wishes  of  the  Austrian-Ger- 
mans and  the  principle  of  self-determination  accordingly 
went  for  nothing.  The  representations  of  Italy,  who 
pleaded  for  that  principle,  were  likewise  brushed  aside. 

But  what  the  delegates  appear  to  have  overlooked  was 
the  decisive  circumstance  that  they  had  already  "on 
strategic  grounds"  assigned  the  Brenner  line  to  Italy  and 
together  with  it  two  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  Tyro- 
lese  of  German  race  living  in  a  compact  mass — although 
a  much  smaller  alien  element  was  deemed  a  bar  to  an- 
nexation in  the  case  of  Poland.  And  what  was  more  to 
the  point,  this  allotment  deprived  Tyrol  of  an  indepen- 
11  147 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

dent  economic  existence,  cutting  it  off  from  the  southern 
valley  and  making  it  tributary  to  Bavaria.  Mr.  Wilson, 
the  public  was  credibly  informed,  "took  this  grave  de- 
cision without  having  gone  deeply  into  the  matter,  and 
he  repents  it  bitterly.  None  the  less,  he  can  no  longer  go 
back."  1 

Just  as  Tyrol's  loss  of  Botzen  and  Meran  made  it  de- 
pendent on  Bavaria,  so  the  severance  of  Vienna  from 
southern  Moravia— the  source  of  its  cereal  supplies,  sit- 
uated at  a  distance  of  only  thirty-six  miles — transformed 
the  Austrian  capital  into  a  head  without  a  body.  But 
on  the  eminent  anatomists  who  were  to  perform  a  variety 
of  unprecedented  operations  on  other  states,  this  spectacle 
had  no  deterrent  effect. 

Whenever  a  topic  came  up  for  discussion  which  could 
not  be  solved  offliand,  it  was  referred  to  a  commission, 
and  in  many  cases  the  commission  was  assisted  by  a  mis- 
sion which  proceeded  to  the  country  concerned  and  within 
a  few  weeks  returned  with  data  which  were  assumed  to 
supply  materials  enough  for  a  decision,  even  though  most 
of  its  members  were  unacquainted  with  the  language  of 
the  people  whose  condition  they  had  been  studying.  How 
quick  of  apprehension  these  envoys  were  supposed  to  be 
may  be  inferred  from  the  task  with  which  the  American 
mission  under  General  Harbord  was  charged,  and  the 
space  of  time  accorded  him  for  achieving  it.  The  mem- 
bers of  this  mission  started  from  Brest  in  the  last  decade 
of  August  for  the  Caucasus,  making  a  stay  at  Constanti- 
nople on  the  way,  and  were  due  back  in  Paris  early  in 
October.  During  the  few  intervening  weeks  "the  mis- 
sion," General  Harbord  said,  "will  go  into  every  phase  of 
the  situation,  political,  racial,  economic,  financial,  and 
commercial.  I  shall  also  investigate  highv/ays,  harbors, 
agricultural  and  mining  conditions,  the  question  of  raising 

'  Journal  de  Genhe,  May  i8,  1919. 

148 


AIMS  AND  METHODS 

an  Armenian  army,  policing  problems,  and  the  raw  mate- 
rials of  Amienia."  *  Only  specialists  who  have  some  prac- 
tical acquaintanceship  with  the  Caucasus,  its  conditions, 
peoples,  languages,  and  problems,  can  appreciate  the 
herculean  effort  needed  to  tackle  intelligently  any  one  of 
the  many  subjects  all  of  which  this  improvised  commis- 
sion under  a  military  general  undertook  to  master  in  four 
weeks.  Never  was  a  chaotic  world  set  right  and  reformed 
at  such  a  bewildering  pace. 

Bad  blood  was  caused  by  the  distribution  of  places  on 
the  various  commissions.  The  delegates  of  the  ler.ser 
nations,  deeming  themselves  badly  treated,  protested 
vehemently,  and  for  a  time  passion  ran  high.  Squabbles 
of  this  nature,  intensified  by  fierce  discussions  within  the 
Council,  tidings  of  which  reached  the  ears  of  the  public 
outside,  disheartened  those  who  were  anxious  for  the 
speedy  restoration  of  normal  conditions  in  a  world  that 
was  fast  decomposing.  But  the  optimism  of  the  three 
principal  plenipotentiaries  was  beyond  the  reach  of  the 
most  depressing  stumbles  and  reverses.  Their  buoyant 
temper  may  be  gaged  from  Mr.  Balfour's  words,  reported 
in  the  press:  "It  is  true  that  there  is  a  good  deal  of  dis- 
cussion going  on,  but  there  is  no  real  discord  about  ideas 
or  facts.  We  are  agreed  on  the  principal  questions  and 
there  only  remains  to  find  the  words  that  embody  the 
agreements."  ^  These  tidings  were  welcomed  at  the  time, 
because  whatever  defects  were  ascribed  to  the  distin- 
guished statesmen  of  the  Conference  by  faultfinders,  a 
lack  of  words  was  assuredly  not  among  them.  This  cheery 
outlook  on  the  future  reminded  me  of  the  better  grounded 
composure  of  Pope  Pius  IX  during  the  stormy  proceed- 
ings at  the  Vatican  Council.     A  layman,  having  expressed 


^  The  New  York  Herald  (Paris  edition),  August  14,  1919. 
2  C£.  Paris  papers  of  February  2,  1919,  and  The  Public  Ledger  (Phila- 
delphia), February  4,  1919. 

J49 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

his  disquietude  at  the  unruly  behavior  of  the  prelates, 
the  Pontiff  replied  that  it  had  ever  been  thus  at  eccle- 
siastical councils.  "At  the  outset,"  he  went  on  to  ex- 
plain, ' '  the  members  behave  as  men,  wrangle  and  quarrel, 
and  nothing  that  they  say  or  do  is  worth  much.  That  is 
the  first  act.  The  second  is  ushered  in  by  the  devil,  who 
intensifies  the  disorder  and  muddles  things  bewilderingly. 
But  happily  there  is  always  a  third  act  in  which  the  Holy 
Ghost  descends  and  arranges  everything  for  the  best." 

The  first  two  phases  of  the  Conference's  proceedings 
bore  a  strong  resemblance  to  the  Pope's  description,  but 
as,  unlike  ecclesiastical  councils,  it  had  no  claim  to  in- 
fallibility, and  therefore  no  third  act,  the  consequences  to 
the  world  were  deplorable.  The  Supreme  Council  never 
knew  how  to  deal  with  an  emergency  and  every  week 
unexpected  incidents  in  the  world  outside  were  calling  for 
prompt  action.  Frequently  it  contradicted  itself  within 
the  span  of  a  few  days,  and  sometimes  at  one  and  the  same 
time  its  principal  representatives  found  themselves  in 
complete  opposition  to  one  another.  To  give  but  one 
example:  In  April  M.  Clemenceau  was  asked  whether 
he  approved  the  project  of  relieving  famine-stricken  Rus- 
sia. His  answer  was  affirmative,  and  he  signed  the  docu- 
ment authorizing  it.  His  colleagues,  Messrs.  "Wilson, 
Lloyd  George,  and  Orlando,  followed  suit,  and  the  matter 
seemed  to  be  settled  definitely.  But  at  the  same  time 
Mr.  Hoover,  who  had  been  the  ardent  advocate  of  the 
plan,  officially  received  a  letter  from  the  French  Minister 
of  Foreign  Affairs  signifying  the  refusal  of  the  French 
government  to  acquiesce  in  it.^  On  another  occasion  -  the 
Supreme  Council  thought  fit  to  despatch  a  mission  to  Asia 
Minor  in  order  to  ascertain  the  views  of  the  populations 
of  Syria  and  Mesopotamia  on  the  regime  best  suited  to 
them.     France,  whose  secular  relations  with  Syria,  where 

1  Cf.  L'Echo  de  Paris,  April  19,  1919.  ~  Tn  April,  1919. 

ISO 


AIM^  AND  METHODS 

she  maintains  admirable  educational  establishments,  are 
said  to  have  endeared  her  to  the  population,  objected  to 
this  expedient  as  superfluous  and  mischievous.  Super- 
fluous because  the  Francophil  sentiments  of  the  people 
are  supposed  to  be  beyond  all  doubt,  and  mischievous 
because  plebiscites  or  substitutes  for  plebiscites  could 
have  only  a  bolshevizing  effect  on  Orientals.  Seemingly 
yielding  to  these  considerations,  the  Supreme  Council 
abandoned  the  scheme  and  the  members  of  the  mission 
made  other  plans. ^  After  several  weeks'  further  reflection, 
however,  the  original  idea  was  carried  out,  and  the  mis- 
sion visited  the  East. 

The  reader  may  be  glad  of  a  momentary  glimpse  of  the 
interior  of  the  historic  assembly  afforded  by  those  who 
were  privileged  to  play  a  part  in  it  before  it  was  trans- 
formed into  a  secret  conclave  of  five,  four,  or  three. 
Within  the  doors  of  the  chambers  whence  fateful  decrees 
were  issued  to  the  four  corners  of  the  earth  the  delegates 
were  seated,  mostly  according  to  their  native  languages, 
within  earshot  of  the  special  pleaders.  M.  Clemenceau, 
at  the  head  of  the  table,  has  before  him  a  delegate  charged 
with  conducting  the  case,  say,  of  Greece,  Poland,  Serbia, 
or  Czechslovakia.  The  delegate,  standing  in  front  of  the 
stern  but  mobile  Premier,  and  encircled  by  other  more  or 
less  attentive  plenipotentiaries,  looks  like  a  nervous  school- 
boy appearing  before  exacting  examiners,  struggling  with 
difficult  questions  and  eager  to  answer  them  satisfactorily. 
vSuppose  the  first  language  spoken  is  French.  As  many 
of  the  plenipotentiaries  do  not  understand  it,  they  cannot 
be  blamed  for  relaxing  attention  while  it  is  being  employed, 
and  keeping  up  a  desultory  conversation  among  them- 
selves in  idiomatic  English,  which  forms  a  running  bass 
accompaniment  to  the  voice,  often  finely  modulated,  of 
the  orator.     Owing  to  this  embarrassing  language  diffi- 

^  About  April  lo,  1919. 

151 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

culty,  as  soon  as  a  delegate  pauses  to  take  his  breath,  his 
arguments  and  appeals  are  done  by  M.  Mantoux  into 
English,  and  then  it  is  the  turn  of  the  French  plenipoten- 
tiaries to  indulge  in  a  quiet  chat  until  some  question  is 
put  in  English,  which  has  forthwith  to  be  rendered  into 
French,  after  which  the  French  reply  is  translated  into 
English,  and  so  on  unendingly,  each  group  resuming  its 
interrupted  conversations  alternately. 

One  delegate  who  passed  several  hours  undergoing  this 
ordeal  said  that  he  felt  wholly  out  of  sympathy  with  the 
atmosphere  at  the  Conference  Hall,  adding:  "While  ar- 
guing or  appealing  to  my  country's  arbiters  I  felt  I  was 
addressing  only  a  minority  of  the  distinguished  judges, 
while  the  thoughts  of  the  others  were  far  away.  And 
when  the  interpreter  was  rendering,  quickly,  mechanically, 
and  summarily,  my  ideas  without  any  of  the  explosive 
passion  that  shot  them  from  my  heart,  I  felt  discouraged. 
But  suddenly  it  dawned  on  me  that  no  judgment  would 
be  uttered  on  the  strength  of  anything  that  I  had  said  or 
left  unsaid.  I  remembered  that  everything  would  be 
referred  to  a  commission,  and  from  that  to  a  sub-commis- 
sion, then  back  again  to  the  distinguished  plenipoten- 
tiaries." 

Another  delegate  remarked :  '  *  Many  years  have  elapsed 
since  I  passed  my  last  examination,  but  it  came  back  to 
me  in  all  its  vividness  when  I  walked  up  to  Premier 
Clemenceau  and  looked  into  his  restless,  flashing  eyes. 
I  said  to  myself:  When  last  I  was  examined  I  was  pain- 
fully conscious  that  my  professors  knew  a  lot  more  about 
the  subject  than  I  did,  but  now  I  am  painfully  aware 
that  they  know  hardly  anything  at  all  and  I  am  fervently 
desirous  of  teaching  them.  The  task  is  arduous.  It 
might,  however,  save  time  and  labor  if  the  delegates  would 
receive  our  typewritten  dissertations,  read  them  quietly 
in  their  respective  hotels,  and  endeavor  to  form  a  judgment 

152 


AIMS  AND  METHODS 

on  the  data  they  supply.  Failing  that,  I  should  like  at 
least  to  provide  them  with  a  criterion  of  truth,  for  after 
me  will  come  an  opponent  who  will  flatly  contradict  me, 
and  how  can  they  sift  truth  from  error  when  the  winnow 
is  wanting?  It  is  hard  to  feel  that  one  is  in  the  presence 
of  great  satraps  of  destiny,  but  I  made  an  act  of  faith 
in  the  possibilities  of  genial  quantities  lurking  behind 
those  everyday  faces  and  of  a  sort  of  magic  power  of  calling 
into  being  new  relations  of  peace  and  fellowship  between 
individual  classes  and  peoples.     It  was  an  act  of  faith." 

If  the  members  of  the  Supreme  Council  lacked  the 
graces  with  which  to  draw  their  humbler  colleagues  and 
were  incapable  of  according  hospitality  to  any  of  the 
more  or  less  revolutionary  ideas  floating  in  the  air,  they 
were  also  utterly  powerless  to  enforce  their  behests  in 
eastern  Europe  against  serious  opposition.  Thus,  al- 
though they  kept  considerable  Inter- Allied  forces  in  Ger- 
many, they  failed  to  impose  their  decrees  there,  notwith- 
standing the  circumstance  that  Germany  was  disorgan- 
ized, nearly  disarmed,  and  distracted  by  internal  feuds. 
The  Conference  gave  way  when  Germany  refused  to  let 
the  Polish  troops  disembark  at  Dantzig,  although  it  had 
proclaimed  its  resolve  to  insist  on  their  using  that  port. 
It  allowed  Odessa  to  be  evacuated  and  its  inhabitants 
to  be  decimated  by  the  bloodthirsty  Bolsheviki.  It 
ordered  the  Ukrainians  and  the  Poles  to  cease  hostilities,^ 
but  hostilities  went  on  for  months  afterward.  An 
American  general  was  despatched  to  the  warring  peoples 
to  put  an  end  to  the  fighting,  but  he  returned  despond- 
ent, leaving  things  as  he  had  found  them.  General 
Smuts  was  sent  to  Budapest  to  strike  up  an  agreement 
with  Kuhn  and  the  Magyar  Bolshevists,  but  he,  too, 
came  back  after  a  fruitless  conversation.  The  Supreme 
Council's  writ  ran  in  none  of  those  places. 

'On  March  19,  1919. 

153 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

About  March  19th  the  Inter- AlHed  commission  gave  Erz- 
berger  twenty-four  hours  in  which  to  ratify  the  convention 
between  Germany  and  Poland  and  to  carry  out  the  con- 
ditions of  the  armistice.  But  Erzberger  declined  to 
ratify  it  and  the  Allies  were  unable  or  unwilling  to  impose 
their  will  on  him.  From  this  state  of  things  the  Rumanian 
delegates  drew  the  obvious  corollary.  Exasperated  by 
the  treatment  they  received,  they  quitted  the  Conference, 
pursued  their  own  policy,  occupied  Budapest,  presented 
their  own  peace  conditions  to  Hungary,  and  relegated, 
with  courteous  phrases  and  a  polite  bow  to  the  Council, 
the  directions  elaborated  for  their  guidance  to  the  region 
of  pious  counsels. 

In  these  ways  the  well-meant  and  well-advertised 
endeavors  to  substitute  a  moral  relationship  of  nations 
for  the  state  of  latent  warfare  known  as  the  balance  of 
power  were  steadily  wasted.  On  the  one  side  the  subtle 
skill  of  Old  World  diplomacy  was  toiling  hard  and  suc- 
cessfully to  revive  under  specious  names  its  lost  and 
failing  causes,  while  on  the  other  hand  the  New  World 
policy,  naively  ignoring  historical  forces  and  secular 
prejudices,  was  boldly  reaching  out  toward  rough  and 
ready  modes  of  arranging  things  and  taking  no  account 
of  concrete  circumstances.  Generous  idealists  were  thus 
pitted  against  old  diplomatic  stagers  and  both  secretly 
strove  to  conclude  hastily  driven  bargains  outside  the 
Council  chamber  with  their  opponents.  As  early  as  the 
first  days  of  January  I  was  present  at  some  informal 
meetings  where  such  transactions  were  being  talked  over, 
and  I  afterward  gave  it  as  my  impression  that  "if  things 
go  forward  as  they  are  moving  to-day  the  outcome  will 
fall  far  short  of  reasonable  expectations.  The  first  strik- 
ing difference  between  the  transatlantic  idealists  and  the 
Old  World  politicians  lies  in  their  different  ways  of 
appreciating  expeditiousness,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 

154 


AIMS  AND  METHODS 

bases  of  the  European  state-system,  on  the  other  hand. 
A  statesman  when  deaHng  with  urgent,  especially  revo- 
lutionary, emergencies  should  never  take  his  eyes  from 
the  clock.  The  politicians  in  Paris  hardly  ever  take 
account  of  time  or  opportunity.  The  overseas  reformers 
contend  that  the  territorial  and  political  balance  of  forces 
has  utterly  broken  down  and  must  be  definitely  scrapped 
in  favor  of  a  league  of  nations,  and  the  diplomatists  hold 
that  the  principle  of  equilibrium,  far  from  having  spent 
its  force,  still  affords  the  only  groundwork  of  interna- 
tional stability  and  requires  to  be  further  intensified."  * 

Living  in  the  very  center  of  the  busy  world  of  destiny- 
weavers,  who  were  generously,  if  unavailingly,  devoting 
time  and  labor  to  the  fabrication  of  machinery  for  the 
good  government  of  the  entire  human  race  out  of  scanty 
and  not  wholly  suitable  materials,  a  historian  in  presence 
of  the  manifold  conflicting  forces  at  work  would  have 
found  it  difficult  to  survey  them  all  and  set  the  daily 
incidents  and  particular  questions  in  correct  perspective. 
The  earnestness  and  good-will  of  the  plenipotentiaries 
were  highly  praiseworthy  and  they  themselves,  as  we  saw, 
were  most  hopeful.  Nearly  all  the  delegates  were  char- 
acterized by  the  spirit  of  compromise,  so  valuable  in 
vulgar  politics,  but  so  perilous  in  embodying  ideals. 
Anxious  to  reach  unanimous  decisions  even  when  una- 
nimity was  lacking,  the  principal  statesmen  boldly  had 
recourse  to  ingenious  formulas  and  provisional  agreements, 
which  each  party  might  construe  in  its  own  way,  and  paid 
scant  attention  to  what  was  going  on  outside.  I  wrote 
at  the  time :  ^ 

"But  parallel  with  the  Conference  and  the  daily  lectures 
which  its  members  are  receiving  on  geography,  ethnog- 


^  Cf.   my  cablegram  published  in    The  Public  Ledger    (Philadelphia), 
January  12,  19 19. 

-  Cf.  The  Ptiblic  Ledger  (Philadelphia),  February  5,  1919. 

155 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

raphy,  and  history  there  are  other  councils  at  work,  some 
pubHcly,  others  privately,  which  represent  the  vast  masses 
who  are  in  a  greater  hurry  than  the  political  world  to 
have  their  urgent  wants  supplied.  For  they  are  the 
millions  of  Europe's  inhabitants  who  care  little  about 
strategic  frontiers  and  much  about  life's  necessaries  which 
they  find  it  increasingly  difhcult  to  obtain.  Only  a  visitor 
from  a  remote  planet  could  fully  realize  the  significance  of 
the  bewildering  phenomena  that  meet  one's  gaze  here 
every  day  without  exciting  wonder.  .  .  .  The  sprightly 
people  who  form  the  rind  of  the  politico-social  world  .  .  . 
are  wont  to  launch  winged  words  and  coin  witty  epigrams 
when  characterizing  what  they  irreverently  term  the  efforts 
of  the  Peace  Conference  to  square  the  circle;  they  con- 
trast the  noble  intentions  of  the  delegates  with  the  grim 
realities  of  the  workaday  world,  which  appear  to  mock 
their  praiseworthy  exertions.  They  say  that  there  never 
were  so  many  wars  as  during  the  deliberations  of  these 
famous  men  of  peace.  Hard  fighting  is  going  on  in  Siberia ; 
victories  and  defeats  have  just  been  reported  from  the 
Caucasus;  battles  between  Bolshevists  and  peace-lovers 
are  raging  in  Esthonia;  blood  is  flowing  in  streams  in  the 
Ukraine ;  Poles  and  Czechs  have  only  now  signed  an  agree- 
ment to  sheath  swords  until  the  Conference  announces  its 
verdict;  the  Poles  and  the  Germans,  the  Poles  and  the 
Ukrainians,  the  Poles  and  the  Bolshevists,  are  still  decimat- 
ing each  other's  forces  on  territorial  fragments  of  what 
was  once  Russia,  Germany,  or  Austria." 

Sinister  rumors  were  spread  from  time  to  time  in  Paris, 
London,  and  elsewhere,  which,  wherever  they  were  credited, 
tended  to  shake  public  confidence  not  only  in  the  dealings 
of  the  Supreme  Council  with  the  smaller  countries,  but 
also  in  the  nature  of  the  occult  influences  that  were  be- 
lieved to  be  occasionally  causing  its  decisions  to  swerve 
from  the  orthodox  direction.    And  these  reports  were 


AIMS  AND  METHODS 

believed  by  many  even  in  Conference  circles.  Time  and 
again  I  was  visited  by  delegates  complaining  that  this  or 
that  decision  was  or  would  be  taken  in  response  to  the 
promptings  not  of  land-grabbing  governments,  but  of 
wealthy  capitalists  or  enterprising  captains  of  industry. 
"Wliy  do  you  suppose  that  there  is  so  much  talk  now  of  an 
independent  little  state  centering  around  Klagenfurt?" 
one  of  them  asked  me.  ' '  I  will  tell  you :  for  the  sake  of 
some  avaricious  capitalists.  Already  arrangements  are 
being  pushed  forward  for  the  establishment  of  a  bank  of 
which  most  of  the  shares  are  to  belong  to  X."  Another 
said:  "Dantzig  is  needed  for  politico-commercial  reasons. 
Therefore  it  will  not  be  made  part  of  Poland.*  Already 
conversations  have  begun  with  a  view  to  giving  the  owner- 
ship of  the  wharves  and  various  lucrative  concessions  to 
English-speaking  pioneers  of  industry.  If  the  city  were 
Polish  no  such  liens  could  be  held  on  it  because  the  state 
would  provide  everything  needful  and  exploit  its  re- 
sources." The  part  played  in  the  Banat  Republic  by 
motives  of  a  money-making  character  is  described  else- 
where. 

A  friend  and  adviser  of  President  Wilson  publicly 
affirmed  that  the  Fiume  problem  was  twice  on  the  point 
of  being  settled  satisfactorily  for  all  parties,  when  the 
representatives  of  commercial  interests  cleverly  inter- 
posed their  influence  and  prevented  the  scheme  from  going 
through  in  the  Conference.  I  met  some  individuals  who 
had  been  sent  on  a  secret  mission  to  have  certain  subjects 
taken  into  consideration  by  the  Supreme  Council,  and 
a  man  was  introduced  to  me  whose  aim  was  to  obtain 
through  the  Conference  a  modification  of  financial  legis- 

^  Doctor  Bunke,  Councilor  at  the  court  of  Dantzig,  endeavors  in  The  Dant- 
zig Neueste  Nachrichten  to  prove  that  the  problem  of  Dantzig  was  solved 
exclusively  in  the  interests  of  the  Naval  Powers,  America  and  Britain, 
who  need  it  as  a  basis  for  their  commerce  with  Poland,  Russia,  and  Ger- 
many.    Cf.  also  Le  Temps,  August  23,  1919 

157 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

lation  respecting  the  repayment  of  debts  in  a  certain 
republic  of  South  America.  This  optimist,  however,  re- 
turned as  he  had  come  and  had  nothing  to  show  for  his 
plans.  The  following  significant  passage  appeared  in  a 
leading  article  in  the  principal  American  journal  pub- 
lished in  Paris  *  on  the  subject  of  the  Prinkipo  project 
and  the  postponement  of  its  execution: 

"From  other  sources  it  was  learned  that  the  doubts  and 
delays  in  the  matter  are  not  due  so  much  to  the  declina- 
tion [sic]  of  several  of  the  Russian  groups  to  participate 
in  a  conference  with  the  Bolshevists,  but  to  the  pulling 
against  one  another  of  the  several  interests  represented  by 
the  Allies.  Among  the  Americans  a  certain  very  in- 
fluential group  backed  by  powerful  financial  interests 
which  hold  enormously  rich  oil,  mining,  railway,  and 
timber  concessions,  obtained  under  the  old  regime,  and 
which  purposes  obtaining  further  concessions,  is  strongly 
in  favor  of  recognizing  the  Bolshevists  as  a  de  facto 
government.  In  consideration  of  the  visa  of  these  old 
concessions  by  Lenin  and  Trotzky  and  the  grant  of  new 
rights  for  the  exploitation  of  rich  mineral  territory,  they 
would  be  willing  to  finance  the  Bolshevists  to  the  tune  of 
forty  or  fifty  million  dollars.  And  the  Bolshevists  are 
surely  in  need  of  money.  President  Wilson  and  his  sup- 
porters, it  is  declared,  are  decidedly  averse  from  this 
pretty  scheme." 

That  President  Wilson  would  naturally  set  his  face 
against  any  such  deliberate  compromise  between  Mam- 
mon and  lofty  ideals  it  was  superfluous  to  affirm.  He 
stood  for  a  vast  and  beneficent  reform  and  by  exhorting 
the  world  to  embody  it  in  institutions  awakened  in  some 
people — in  the  masses  were  already  stirring — thoughts 
and  feelings  that  might  long  have  remained  dormant. 
But  beyond  this  he  did  not  go.     His  tendencies,  or,  say, 

'  The  New  York  Herald  (Paris  edition),  March  i,  1919. 

158 


AIMS  AND  METHODS 

rather  velleities — for  they  proved  to  be  hardly  more — 
were  excellent,  but  he  contrived  no  mechanism  by  which 
to  convert  them  into  institutions,  and  when  pressed  by 
gainsayers  abandoned  them. 

An  economist  of  mark  in  France  whose  democratic 
principles  are  well  known  ^  communicated  to  the  French 
public  the  gist  of  certain  curious  documents  in  his  posses- 
sion. They  let  in  an  unpleasant  light  on  some  of  the 
whippers-up  of  lucre  at  the  expense  of  principle,  who 
flocked  around  the  dwelling-places  of  the  great  continent- 
carvers  and  lawgivers  in  Paris.  His  article  bears  this 
repellent  heading :  "  Is  it  true  that  English  and  American 
financiers  negotiated  during  the  war  in  order  to  secure 
lucrative  concessions  from  the  Bolsheviki?  Is  it  true 
that  these  concessions  were  granted  to  them  on  February 
4,  1919?  Is  it  true  that  the  Allied  governments  played 
into  their  hands?"  - 

The  facts  alleged  as  warrants  for  these  questions  are 
briefly  as  follows:  On  February  4,  19 19,  the  Soviet  of  the 
People's  Commissaries  in  Moscow  voted  the  bestowal  of  a 
concession  for  a  railway  linking  Ob-Kotlass-Saroka  and 
Kotlass-Svanka,  in  a  resolution  which  states  "(i)  that 
the  project  is  feasible;  (2)  that  the  transfer  of  the  con- 
cession to  representatives  of  foreign  capital  may  be 
effected  if  production  will  be  augmented  thereby;  (3)  that 
the  execution  of  this  scheme  is  indispensable ;  and  (4)  that 
in  order  to  accelerate  this  solution  of  the  question  the 
persons  desirous  of  obtaining  the  concession  shall  be 
obliged  to  produce  proofs  of  their  contact  with  Allied  and 
neutral  enterprises,  and  of  their  capacity  to  financing  the 
work  and  supply  the  materials  requisite  for  the  construc- 
tion of  the  said  line."     On  the  other  hand,  it  appears  from 

'  Lysis,  author  of  Demain,  and  many  other  remarkable  studies  of  eco- 
nomic problems,  and  editor  of  Le  Denwcratie  Noiivelle,  IVIay  30,  1919. 

^  For  an  account  of  analogous  bargainings  with  Bela  Kuhn,  see  the 
Chapter  on  Riunania. 

1 59 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

an  official  document  bearing  the  date  of  June  26,  191 8, 
that  a  demand  for  the  concession  of  this  Hne  was  lodged 
by  two  individuals — the  painter  A.  A.  Borissoff  (who 
many  years  ago  received  from  me  a  letter  of  introduction 
to  President  Roosevelt  asking  him  to  patronize  this 
gentleman's  exhibition  of  paintings  in  the  United  States), 
and  Herr  Edvard  Hannevig.  Desirous  of  ascertaining 
whether  these  petitioners  possessed  the  qualifications 
demanded,  the  Bolshevist  authorities  made  inquiries 
and  received  from  the  Royal  Norwegian  Consulate  at 
Moscow  a  certificate  ^  setting  forth  that  "citizen  Hanne- 
vig was  a  co-associate  of  the  large  banks  Hannevig  situ- 
ated in  London  and  in  America."  Consequently  negotia- 
tions might  go  forward.  The  document  adds:  "In 
October  Borissoff  and  Hannevig  renewed  their  request, 
whereupon  the  journals  Pravda,  Izevestia,  and  Ekonomit- 
sheskaya  Shizn  discussed  the  subject  with  animation.  At 
a  sitting  held  on  October  12th  the  project  was  approved 
with  certain  modifications,  and  on  February  i,  191 9,  the 
Supreme  Soviet  of  National  Economy  approved  it  anew." 

The  magnitude  of  the  concession  may  be  inferred  from 
the  circumstance  that  one  of  its  clauses  conceded  "the 
exploitation  of  eight  millions  of  forest  land  which  even 
to-day,  despite  existing  conditions,  can  bring  in  a  revenue 
of  three  hundred  million  rubles  a  year.'' 

What  it  comes  to,  therefore,  assuming  that  these 
official  documents  are  as  they  seem,  based  on  facts,  is 
that  from  June  26th,  that  is  to  say  during  the  war,  the 
Bolshevist  government  was  petitioned  to  accord  an  im- 
portant railway  concession  and  also  the  exploitation  of  a 
forest  capable  of  yielding  three  hundred  million  rubles 
a  year  to  a  Russian  citizen  who  alleged  that  he  was  acting 
on  behalf  of  English  and  American  capitalists,  and  that 
Edvard  Hannevig,  having  proved  that  he  was  really  the 

1  Bearing  the  number  3882. 

160 


AIMS  AND  METHODS 

mandatory  of  these  great  allied  financiers,  the  concession 
was  first  approved  by  two  successive  commissions  ^  and 
then  definitely  conferred  by  the  Soviet  of  the  People's 
Commissaries.- 

The  eminent  author  of  the  article  proceeds  to  ask 
whether  this  can  indeed  be  true;  whether  EngHsh  and 
American  capitalists  petitioned  the  Bolsheviki  for  vast 
concessions  during  the  war;  whether  they  obtained  them 
while  the  Conference  was  at  its  work  and  soldiers  of  their 
respective  countries  were  fighting  in  Russia  against  the 
Bolsheviki  who  were  bestowing  them.  "Is  it  true,"  he 
makes  bold  to  ask  further,  "that  that  is  the  explanation  of 
the  incredible  friendliness  displayed  by  the  Allied  govern- 
ments toward  the  Bolshevist  bandits  with  whom  they 
were  willing  to  strike  up  a  compromise,  whom  they  were 
minded  to  recognize  by  organizing  a  conference  on  the 
Princes'  Island?  .  .  .  Many  times  already  rank-smelling 
whiffs  of  air  have  blown  upon  us;  they  suggested  the 
belief  that  behind  the  Peace  Conference  there  lurked  not 
merely  what  people  feared,  but  something  still  worse  or 
an  immense  political  Panama.  If  this  is  not  true,  gentle- 
men, deny  it.  Otherwise  one  day  you  will  surely  have 
an  explosion."  ^ 

Whether  these  grave  innuendoes,  together  with  the 
statement  made  by  Mr.  George  Herron,^  the  incident  of 

1  On  October  12,  1918,  and  February  i,  1919 

2  On  February  4,  19 19. 

^  La  Ditnocratie  Noiivelle,  May  30,  1919 

*  See  his  admirable  article  in  The  New  York  Herald  (Paris  edition)  of 
May  21,  1919,  from  which  the  following  extract  is  worth  quoting:  "  I  have 
said  that  certain  great  forces  have  steadily  and  occultly  worked  for  a  Ger- 
man peace.  But  I  mean,  in  fact,  one  force — an  international  finance  to 
which  all  other  forces  hostile  to  the  freedom  of  nations  and  of  the  individ- 
ual soul  are  contributory.  The  influence  of  this  finance  had  permeated 
the  Conference,  delaying  the  decisions  as  long  as  possible,  increasing 
divisions  between  people  and  people,  between  class  and  class,  between 
peace-makers  and  peace-makers,  in  order  to  achieve  two  definite  ends,  which 
two  ends  are  one  and  the  same. 

"The  first  end  was  so  to  manipulate  the  minds  of  the  peace-makers,  of 

161 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

the  Banat  Republic  and  the  ultimatum  respecting  the 
oil-fields  unofficially  presented  to  the  Rumanians  suffice 
to  establish  a  prima  facie  case  may  safely  be  left  to  the 
judgment  of  the  public.  The  conscientious  and  impartial 
historian,  however  firm  his  faith  in  the  probity  of  the 
men  representing  the  powers,  both  of  unlimited  and 
limited  interests,  cannot  pass  them  over  in  silence. 

One  of  the  shrewdest  delegates  in  Paris,  a  man  who 
allowed  himself  to  be  breathed  upon  freely  by  the  old 
spirit  of  nationalism,  but  was  capable  withal  of  appreciat- 
ing the  passionate  enthusiasm  of  others  for  a  more 
altruistic  dispensation,  addressed  me  one  evening  as 
follows:  "Say  what  3^ou  will,  the  Secret  Council  is  a 
Council  of  Two,  and  the  Covenant  a  charter  conferred 
upon  the  English-speaking  peoples  for  the  government 
of  the  world.  The  design — if  it  be  a  design — may  be 
excellent,  but  it  is  not  relished  by  the  other  peoples.  It 
is  a  less  odious  hegemony  than  that  of  imperialist  Ger- 
many would  have  been,  but  it  is  a  hegemony  and  odious. 
Surely  in  a  quest  of  this  kind  after  the  most  effectual 
means  of  overcoming  the  difficulties  and  obviating  the 
dangers  of  international  intercourse,  more  even  than  in 
the  choice  of  a  political  regime,  the  principle  of  self- 
determination  should  be  allowed  free  play.  Was  that 
not  to  have  been  one  of  the  choicest  fruits  of  victory? 
But  no;  force  is  being  set  in  motion,  professedly  for  the 
good  of  all,  but  only  as  their  good  is  understood  by  the 
'all-powerful  Two.'  And  to  all  the  others  it  is  force  and 
nothing  more.  Is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that  there  are  so 
many   discontented  people  or  that  some  of  them  are 


their  hordes  of  retainers  and  'experts,'  as  to  bring  about,  if  possible,  a  peace 
that  would  not  be  destructive  to  industrial  Germany.  The  second  end  was 
so  to  delay  the  Russian  question,  so  to  complicate  and  thwart  every  pro- 
posed solution,  that,  at  last,  either  during  or  after  the  Peace  Conference, 
a  recognition  of  the  Bolshevist  power  as  the  de  facto  government  of  Russia 
would  be  the  only  possible  solution." 

162 


AIMS  AND  METHODS 

already  casting  about  for  an  alternative  to  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  hegemony  misnamed  the  Society  of  Nations?" 

It  cannot  be  gainsaid  that  the  two  predominant  part- 
ners behaved  throughout  as  benevolent  despots,  to  whom 
despotism  came  more  easily  than  benevolence.  As  we 
saw,  they  kept  their  colleagues  of  the  lesser  states  as  much 
in  the  dark  as  the  general  public  and  claimed  from  them 
also  implicit  obedience  to  all  their  behests.  They  went 
farther  and  demanded  unreasoning  acquiescence  in  de- 
cisions to  be  taken  in  the  future,  and  a  promise  of  prompt 
acceptance  of  their  injunctions — a  pretension  such  as  was 
never  before  put  forward  outside  the  Catholic  Church, 
which,  at  any  rate,  claims  infallibility.  Asked  why  he 
had  not  put  up  a  better  fight  for  one  of  the  states  of 
eastern  Europe,  a  sharp-tongued  delegate  irreverently 
made  answer,  "What  more  could  you  expect  than  I  did, 
seeing  that  I  was  opposed  by  one  colleague  who  looks 
upon  himself  as  Napoleon  and  by  another  who  believes 
himself  to  be  the  Messiah." 

Among  the  many  epigrammatic  sayings  current  in  Paris 
about  the  Conference,  the  most  original  was  ascribed  to 
the  Emir  Faissal,  the  son  of  the  King  of  the  Hedjaz. 
Asked  what  he  thought  of  the  world's  areopagus,  he  is  said 
to  have  answered:  "It  reminds  me  somewhat  of  one  of 
the  sights  of  my  own  country.  My  country,  as  you 
know,  is  the  desert.  Caravans  pass  through  it  that  may 
be  likened  to  the  armies  of  delegates  and  experts  at  the 
Conference — caravans  of  great  camels  solemnly  trudging 
along  one  after  the  other,  each  bearing  its  own  load.  They 
all  move  not  whither  they  will,  but  whither  they  are  led. 
For  they  have  no  choice.  But  between  the  two  there  is 
this  difference:  that  whereas  the  big  caravan  in  the 
desert  has  but  one  leader — a  little  ass — the  Conference  in 
Paris  is  led  by  two  delegates  who  are  the  great  Ones  of 
the  earth."  In  effect,  the  leaders  were  two,  and  no  one 
12  163 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

can  say  which  of  them  had  the  upper  hand.  Now  it 
seemed  to  be  the  British  Premier,  now  the  American 
President.  The  former  scored  the  first  victory,  on  the 
freedom  of  the  seas,  before  the  Conference  opened.  The 
latter  won  the  next,  when  Mr.  Wilson  firmly  insisted  on 
inserting  the  Covenant  in  the  Treaty  and  finally  over- 
rode the  objections  of  Mr.  Lloyd  George  and  M.  Cle- 
menceau,  who  scouted  the  idea  for  a  while  as  calculated  to 
impair  the  value  of  both  charters.  There  was  also  a 
moment  when  the  two  were  reported  to  have  had  a  serious 
disagreement  and  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  having  suddenly 
quitted  Paris  for  rustic  seclusion,  was  likened  to  Achilles 
sulking  in  his  tent.  But  one  of  the  two  always  gave  way 
at  the  last  moment,  just  as  both  had  given  way  to  M. 
Clemenceau  at  the  outset.  When  the  difference  between 
Japan  and  China  cropped  up,  for  example,  the  other  dele- 
gates made  Mr.  Wilson  their  spokesman.  Despite  M. 
Clemenceau's  resolve  that  the  public  should  not  "be 
apprized  that  the  head  of  one  government  had  ever  put 
forward  a  proposal  which  was  opposed  by  the  head  of 
another  government,"  it  became  known  that  they  occa- 
sionally disagreed  among  themselves,  were  more  than 
once  on  the  point  of  separating,  and  that  at  best  their 
unanimity  was  often  of  the  verbal  order,  failing  to  take 
root  in  identity  of  views.  To  those  who  would  fain  predi- 
cate political  tact  or  statesmanship  of  the  men  who  thus 
undertook  to  set  human  progress  on  a  new  and  ethical 
basis,  the  story  of  these  bickerings,  hasty  improvisations, 
and  amazing  compromises  is  distressing.  The  incertitude 
and  suspense  that  resulted  were  disconcerting.  Nobody 
ever  knew  what  was  coming.  A  subcommission  might 
deliver  a  reasoned  judgment  on  the  question  submitted 
to  it,  and  this  might  be  unanimously  confirmed  by  the 
commission,  but  the  Four  or  Three  or  Two  or  even  One 
could  not  merely  quash  the  report,  but  also  reverse  the 

164 


AIMS  AND  METHODS 

practical  consequences  that  followed.     This  was  done  over 
and  over  again. 

And  there  were  other  performances  still  more  amazing. 
When,  for  example,  the  PoHsh  problem  became  so  press- 
ing that  it  could  not  be  safely  postponed  any  longer,  the 
first  delegates  were  at  their  wits'  ends.  Unable  to  agree 
on  any  of  the  solutions  mooted,  they  conceived  the  idea 
of  obtaining  further  data  and  a  lead  from  a  special  com- 
mission. The  commission  was  accordingly  appointed. 
Among  its  members  were  Sir  Esme  Howard,  who  has  since 
become  Ambassador  in  Rome,  the  American  General 
Kernan,  and  M.  Noulens,  the  ex-Ambassador  of  France 
in  Petrograd.  These  envoys  and  their  colleagues  set  out 
for  Poland  to  study  the  problem  on  the  spot.  They 
exerted  themselves  to  the  utmost  to  gather  data  for  a 
serious  judgment,  and  returned  to  Paris  after  a  sojourn 
of  some  two  months,  legitimately  proud  of  the  copious 
and  well-sifted  results  of  their  research.  And  then  they 
waited.  Days  passed  and  weeks,  but  nobody  took  the 
slightest  interest  in  the  envoys.  They  were  ignored.  At 
last  the  chief  of  the  commission,  M.  Noulens,  taking  the 
initiative,  wrote  direct  to  M.  Clemenceau,  informing  him 
that  the  task  intrusted  to  him  and  his  colleagues  had  been 
achieved,  and  requesting  to  be  permitted  to  make  their 
report  to  the  Conference.  The  reply  was  an  order  dis- 
solving the  commission  unheard. 

Once  when  the  relations  between  Messrs.  Wilson  and 
Lloyd  George  were  somewhat  spiced  by  antagonism  of 
purpose  and  incompatibility  of  methods,  a  political 
friend  of  the  latter  urged  him  to  make  a  firm  stand. 
But  the  British  Premier,  feeling,  perhaps,  that  there 
were  too  many  unascertained  elements  in  the  matter,  or 
identifying  the  President  with  the  United  States,  drew 
back.  More  than  once,  too,  when  a  certain  delegate  was 
stating  his  case  with  incisive  emphasis  Mr.  Wilson,  who 

165 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

was  listening  with  attention  and  in  silence,  would  suddenly 
ask,  "Is  this  an  ultimatum?"  The  American  President 
himself  never  shrank  from  presenting  an  ultimatum 
when  sure  of  his  ground  and  morally  certain  of  victory. 
On  one  such  occasion  a  proposal  had  been  made  to  Mr. 
Lloyd  George,  who  approved  it  whole-heartedly.  But 
it  failed  to  receive  the  placet  of  the  American  statesman. 
Thereupon  the  British  Premier  was  strongly  urged  to 
stand  firm.  But  he  recoiled,  his  plea  being  that  he  had 
received  an  ultimatum  from  his  American  colleague, 
who  spoke  of  quitting  France  and  withdrawing  the  Ameri- 
can troops  unless  the  point  were  conceded.  And  Mr. 
Wilson  had  his  way.  One  might  have  thought  that 
this  success  would  hearten  the  President  to  other  and 
greater  achievements.  But  the  leader  who  incarnated 
in  his  own  person  the  highest  strivings  of  the  age,  and 
who  seemed  destined  to  acquire  pontifical  ascendancy 
in  a  regenerated  world,  lacked  the  energy  to  hold  his  own 
when  matters  of  greater  moment  and  high  principle 
were  at  stake. 

These  battles  waged  within  the  walls  of  the  palace 
on  the  Quai  d'Orsay  were  discussed  out-of-doors  by  an 
interested  and  watchful  public,  and  the  conviction  was 
profound  and  widespread  that  the  President,  having 
set  his  hand  to  the  plow  so  solemnly  and  publicly,  and 
having  promised  a  harvest  of  far-reaching  reforms,  would 
not  look  back,  however  intractable  the  ground  and  how- 
ever meager  the  crop.  But  confronted  with  serious 
obstacles,  he  flinched  from  his  task,  and  therein,  to  my 
thinking,  lay  his  weakness.  If  he  had  come  prepared 
to  assert  his  personal  responsibility,  to  unfold  his  scheme, 
to  have  it  amply  and  publicly  discussed,  to  reject  pusil- 
lanimous compromise  in  the  sphere  of  execution,  and  to 
appeal  to  the  peoples  of  the  world  to  help  him  to  carry 
it  out,  the  last  phase  of  his  policy  would  have  been  worthy 

i66 


Aims  and  methods 

of  the  first,  and  might  conceivably  have  inaugurated  the 
triumph  of  the  ideas  which  the  indolent  and  the  men  of 
little  faith  rejected  as  incapable  of  realization.  To  this 
hardy  course,  which  would  have  challenged  the  approba- 
tion of  all  that  is  best  in  the  world,  there  was  an  alter- 
native: Mr.  Wilson  might  have  confessed  that  his  judg- 
ment was  at  fault,  manldnd  not  being  for  the  moment 
in  a  fitting  mood  to  practise  the  new  tenets,  that  a  speedy 
peace  with  the  enemy  was  the  first  and  most  pressing 
duty,  and  that  a  world-parliament  should  be  convened 
for  a  later  date  to  prepare  the  peoples  of  the  universe 
for  the  new  ordering.  But  he  chose  neither  alternative. 
At  first  it  was  taken  for  granted  that  in  the  twilight 
of  the  Conference  hall  he  had  fought  valiantly  for  the 
principles  which  he  had  propounded  as  the  groundwork 
of  the  new  politico-social  fabric,  and  that  it  was  only  when 
he  found  himself  confronted  with  the  insuperable  antag- 
onism of  his  colleagues  of  France  and  Britain  that  he 
reluctantly  receded  from  his  position  and  resolved  to 
show  himself  all  the  more  unbending  to  the  envoys  of 
the  lesser  countries.  But  this  assumption  was  refuted 
by  State-Secretary  Lansing,  who  admitted  to  the  Senate 
Foreign  R.elations  Committee  that  the  President's  Four- 
teen Points,  which  he  had  vowed  to  carry  out,  were  not 
even  discussed  at  the  Conference.  The  outcome  of  this 
attitude — one  cannot  term  it  a  policy — was  to  leave  the 
best  of  the  ideas  which  he  stood  for  in  solution,  to  embitter 
every  ally  except  France  and  Britain,  and  to  scatter 
explosives  all  over  the  world. 

To  this  dwarfing  parliamentary  view  of  world-policy 
Mr.  Lloyd  George  likev/ise  fell  a  victim.  But  his  fault 
was  not  so  glaring.  For  it  should  in  fairness  be  remem- 
bered that  it  was  not  he  who  first  preached  the  advent  of 
the  millennium.  He  had  only  given  it  a  tardy  and  cold 
assent,  qualified  by  an  occasional  sally  of  keen  pleasantry. 

167 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

Down  to  the  last  moment,  as  we  saw,  he  not  only  was 
unaware  that  the  Covenant  would  be  inserted  in  the 
Peace  Treaty,  but  he  was  strongly  of  the  opinion,  as 
indeed  were  M.  Pichon  and  others,  that  the  two  instru- 
ments were  incompatible.  He  also  apparently  inclined 
to  the  belief  that  spiritual  and  moral  agencies,  if  not 
wholly  impotent  to  bring  about  the  requisite  changes  in 
the  politico-social  world,  could  not  effect  the  transforma- 
tion for  a  long  while  to  come,  and  that  in  the  interval  it 
behooved  the  governments  to  fall  back  upon  the  old 
system  of  so-called  equihbrium,  which,  after  Germany's 
collapse,  meant  an  informal  kind  of  Anglo-Saxon  over- 
lordship  of  the  world  and  a  pax  Britannica  in  Europe. 
As  for  his  action  at  the  Conference,  in  so  far  as  it  did  not 
directly  affect  the  well-being  of  the  British  Empire,  which 
was  his  first  and  main  care,  one  might  describe  it  as  one 
of  general  agreement  with  Mr.  Wilson.  He  actually 
threw  it  into  that  formula  when  he  said  that  whenever 
the  interests  of  the  British  Empire  permitted  he  would 
like  to  find  himself  at  one  with  the  United  States.  It  was 
on  that  occasion  that  the  person  addressed  warned  him 
against  identifying  the  President  with  the  people  of  the 
United  States. 

In  truth,  it  was  difficult  to  follow  the  distinguished 
American  idealist,  because  one  seldom  knew  whither 
he  would  lead.  Neither,  apparently,  did  he  himself. 
Some  of  his  own  countrymen  in  Paris  held  that  he  had 
always  been  accustomed  to  follow,  never  to  guide.  Cer- 
tainly at  the  Conference  his  practice  was  to  meet  the  more 
powerful  of  his  contradictors  on  their  own  ground  and 
come  to  terms  with  them,  so  as  to  get  at  least  a  part  of 
what  he  aimed  at,  and  that  he  accepted,  even  when  the 
instalment  was  accorded  to  him  not  as  such,  but  as  a 
final  settlement.  So  far  as  one  can  judge  by  his  public 
acts  and  by  the  admissions  of  State-Secretary  Lansing, 

1 68 


AIMS  AND  METHODS 

he  cannot  have  seriously  contemplated  staking  the  suc- 
cess of  his  mission  on  the  realization  of  his  Fourteen 
Points.  The  manner  in  which  he  dealt  with  his  Covenant, 
with  the  French  demand  for  concrete  military  guaranties 
and  with  secret  treaties,  all  afford  striking  illustrations 
of  his  easy  temper.  Before  quitting  Paris  for  Washington 
he  had  maintained  that  the  Covenant  as  drafted  was 
satisfactory,  nay,  he  contended  that  "not  even  a  period 
could  be  changed  in  the  agreement."  The  Monroe 
Doctrine,  he  held,  needed  no  special  stipulation.  But  as 
soon  as  Senator  Lodge  and  others  took  issue  with  him 
on  the  subject,  he  shifted  his  position  and  hedged  that 
doctrine  round  with  defenses  which  cut  off  a  whole  con- 
tinent from  the  purview  of  the  League,  which  is  nothing 
if  not  cosmic  in  its  functions.^  Again,  there  was  to  be  no 
alliance.  The  French  Premier  foretold  that  there  would 
be  one.  Mr.  Wilson,  who  was  in  England  at  the  time, 
answered  him  in  a  speech  declaring  that  the  United 
States  would  enter  into  no  alliance  which  did  not  include 
all  the  world:  "no  combination  of  power  which  is  not  a 
combination  of  all  of  us."  Well,  since  then  he  became  a 
party  to  a  kind  of  triple  alliance  and  in  the  judgment  of 
many  observers  it  constitutes  the  main  result  of  the 
Conference.  In  the  words  of  an  American  press  organ: 
"Clemenceau  got  virtually  everything  he  asked.  Presi- 
dent Wilson  virtually  dropped  his  own  program,  and 
adopted  the  French  and  British,  both  of  them  imperial- 
istic." 2 

Again,  when  the  first  commission  of  experts  reported 
upon  the  frontiers  of  Poland,  the  British  Premier  objected 


^  "What  confidence  can  be  commanded  by  men  who,  asserting  one  week 
that  the  ultimate  of  human  wisdom  has  been  attained  in  a  document,  con- 
fess the  next  week  that  the  document  is  frail?  When  are  we  to  believe 
that  their  confessions  are  at  an  end? " — The  Chicago  Tribune  (Paris  edition), 
August  23,  1919. 

-  The  Chicago  Tribune  (Paris  edition),  July  31,  1919. 

169 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

to  a  section  of  the  "corridor,"  on  the  ground  that  as  cer- 
tain districts  contained  a  majority  of  Germans  their  an- 
nexation would  be  a  danger  to  the  future  peace  and  there- 
fore to  Poland  herself,  and  also  on  the  ground  that  it 
would  run  counter  to  one  of  Mr.  Wilson's  fundamental 
points;  the  President,  who  at  that  time  dissented  from 
Mr.  Lloyd  George,  rose  and  remarked  that  his  principles 
must  not  be  construed  too  literally.  "When  I  said  that 
Poland  must  be  restored,  I  meant  that  everything  indis- 
pensable to  her  restoration  must  be  accorded.  Therefore, 
if  that  should  involve  the  incorporation  of  a  number  of 
Germans  in  Polish  territory,  it  cannot  be  helped,  for  it 
is  part  of  the  restoration.  Poland  must  have  access  to 
the  sea  by  the  shortest  route,  and  everything  else  which 
that  implies."  None  the  less,  the  British  Premier,  whose 
attitude  toward  the  claims  of  the  Poles  was  marked  by  a 
degree  of  defmiteness  and  persistency  which  could  hardly 
be  anticipated  in  one  who  had  never  even  heard  of  Teschen 
before  the  year  19 19,  maintained  his  objections  with  em- 
phasis and  insistence,  until  Mr.  Wilson  and  M.  Clemen- 
ceau  gave  in. 

Or  take  the  President's  way  of  dealing  with  the  non~ 
belHgerent  states.  Before  leaving  Paris  for  Washington, 
Mr.  Wilson,  officially  questioned  by  one  of  his  colleagues 
at  an  official  sitting  as  to  whether  the  neutrals  would  also 
sign  the  Covenant,  replied  that  only  the  Allies  would  be 
admitted  to  affix  their  signatures.  "Don't  you  think  it 
would  be  more  conducive  to  the  firm  establishment  of  the 
League  if  the  neutrals  were  also  made  parties  to  it  now?" 
insisted  the  plenipotentiary.  "No,  I  do  not,"  answered 
the  President.  "I  think  that  it  would  be  conferring  too 
much  honor  on  them,  and  they  don't  deserve  it."  The 
delegate  was  unfavorably  impressed  by  this  reply.  It 
seemed  lacking  in  breadth  of  view.  Still,  it  was  tenable 
on  certain  narrow,  formal  grounds.     But  what  he  could 

170 


AIMS  AND  METHODS 

not  digest  was  tne  eagerness  with  which  Mr.  Wilson,  on 
his  return  from  Washington,  abandoned  his  way  of  think- 
ing and  adopted  the  opposite  view.  Toward  the  end  of 
April  the  delegates  and  the  world  were  surprised  to  learn 
that  not  only  would  Spain  be  admitted  to  the  orthodox 
fold,  but  that  she  would  have  a  voice  in  the  management 
of  the  flock  with  a  seat  in  the  Council.  The  chief  of  the 
Portuguese  delegation^  at  once  delivered  a  trenchant  pro- 
test against  this  abrupt  departure  from  principle,  and  as 
a  jurisconsult  stigmatized  the  promotion  of  Spain  to  a 
voice  in  the  Council  as  an  irregularity,  and  then  retired 
in  high  dudgeon. 

Thus  the  grave  reproach  cannot  be  spared  Mr.  Wilson 
of  having  been  weak,  vague,  and  inconsistent  with  him- 
self. He  constituted  himself  the  supreme  judge  of  a 
series  of  intricate  questions  affecting  the  organization  and 
tranquillity  of  the  European  Continent,  as  he  had  pre- 
viously done  in  the  case  of  Mexico,  with  the  results  we 
know.  This  authority  was  accorded  to  him — with  cer- 
tain reservations — in  virtue  of  the  exalted  position  which 
he  held  in  a  state  disposing  of  vast  financial  and  economic 
resources,  shielded  from  some  of  the  dangers  that  con- 
tinually overhang  European  nations,  and  immune  from 
the  immediate  consequences  of  the  mistakes  it  might 
commit  in  international  politics.  For  every  continental 
people  in  Europe  is  in  some  measure  dependent  on  the 
good-will  of  the  United  States,  and  therefore  anxious  to 
deserve  it  by  cultivating  the  most  friendly  relations  with 
its  chief.  This  predisposition  on  the  part  of  his  wards 
was  an  asset  that  could  have  been  put  to  good  account. 
It  was  a  guaranty  of  a  measure  of  success  which  would 
have  satisfied  a  generous  ambition ;  it  would  have  enabled 
him  to  effect  by  a  wise  policy  what  revolution  threatened  to 

1  M.  Affonso  Costa,  who  shortly  before  had  succeeded  the  Minister  of 
Foreign  Affairs,  M.  Monas  Egiz. 

171 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

accomplish  by  violence,  and  to  canalize  and  lead  to  fruitful 
fields  the  new-found  strength  of  the  proletarian  masses. 

The  compulsion  of  working  with  others  is  often  a  whole- 
some corrective.  It  helps  one  to  realize  the  need  of  ac- 
commodating measures  to  people's  needs.  But  IMr.  Wil- 
son deliberately  segregated  himself  from  the  nations  for 
whose  behoof  he  was  laboring,  and  from  some  of  their 
authorized  representatives.  And  3"et  the  aspirations  and 
conceptions  of  a  large  section  of  the  masses  differed  very 
considerably  from  those  of  the  two  statesmen  with  whom 
he  was  in  close  collaboration.  His  avowed  aims  were  at 
the  opposite  pole  to  those  of  his  colleagues.  To  reconcile 
intemationaHsm  and  nationalism  was  sheer  impossible. 
Yet  instead  of  upholding  his  owti,  taking  the  peoples  into 
his  confidence,  and  sowing  the  good  seed  which  would 
certainly  have  sprouted  up  in  the  fullness  of  time,  he  set 
himself,  together  with  his  colleagues,  to  weld  contradic- 
tories and  contributed  to  produce  a  synthesis  composed 
of  disembodied  ideas,  disintegrated  communities,  embit- 
tered nations,  conflicting  states,  frenzied  classes,  and  a 
seething  mass  of  discontent  throughout  the  world. 

Mr.  Wilson  has  fared  ill  wdth  his  critics,  who,  when  in 
quest  of  explanations  of  his  changeful  courses,  sought  for 
them,  as  is  the  wont  of  the  average  politician,  in  the  least 
noble  parts  of  human  nature.  In  his  case  they  felt  espe- 
cially repelled  by  his  imperial  aloofness,  the  secrecy  of  his 
deliberations,  and  the  magisterial  tone  of  his  judgments, 
even  when  these  were  in  flagrant  contradiction  with  one 
another.  Obstinacy  was  also  included  among  the  traits 
which  were  commonh^  ascribed  to  him.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  he  was  a  very  good  listener,  an  intelligent  questioner, 
and  amenable  to  argument  whenever  he  felt  free  to  give 
practical  effect  to  the  conclusions.  "When  this  was  not 
the  case,  arguments  necessarily-  failed  of  their  effect,  and 
on  these  occasions  considerations  of  expediency  proved  a 

172 


AIMS  AND  METHODS 

lever  sufficient  to  sway  his  decision.  But,  like  his  more 
distinguished  colleagues,  he  had  to  rely  upon  counsel  from 
outside,  and  in  his  case,  as  in  theirs,  the  official  adviser 
was  not  always  identical  with  the  real  prompter.  He,  too, 
as  we  saw,  set  aside  the  findings  of  the  commissions  when 
they  disagreed  with  his  own.  In  a  word,  Mr.  Wilson's 
fatal  stumble  was  to  have  sacrificed  essentials  in  order  to 
score  on  issues  of  secondary  moment;  for  while  success 
enabled  him  to  obtain  his  pa[)cr  Covenant  from  his  co- 
delegates  in  Paris,  and  to  bring  back  tangible  results  to 
Washington,  it  lost  him  the  leadership  of  the  world.  The 
cost  of  this  deplorable  weakness  to  mankind  can  be  esti- 
mated only  after  its  worst  effects  have  been  added  up 
and  appraised. 

In  matters  affecting  the  destinies  of  the  lesser  states 
Mr.  Wilson  was  firm  as  a  rock.  From  the  position  once 
taken  up  nothing  could  move  him.  Their  economic 
dependence  on  his  own  country  rendered  their  arguments 
pointless  and  lent  irresistible  force  to  his  injunctions. 
Greece's  dispute  with  Bulgaria  was  a  classic  instance. 
The  Bulgars  repaired  to  Paris  more  as  claimants  in  sup- 
port of  indefeasible  rights  than  as  vanquished  enemies 
summoned  to  learn  the  conditions  imposed  on  them  by 
the  nations  which  they  had  betrayed  and  assailed.  Vic- 
tory alone  could  have  justified  their  territorial  pretensions; 
defeat  made  them  grotesque.  All  at  once,  however,  it 
was  bruited  abroad  that  President  Wilson  had  become 
Bulgaria's  intercessor  and  favored  certain  of  her  exor- 
bitant claims.  One  of  these  was  for  the  annexation  of 
I^art  of  the  coast  of  western  Thrace,  together  with  a  sea- 
])ort  at  the  expense  of  the  Greeks,  the  race  which  had 
resided  on  the  seaboard  for  twenty-five  hundred  consecu- 
tive years.  M.  Venizelos  offered  them  instead  one  com- 
mercial outlet^  and  special  privileges  in  another,  and  the 

'  Dedeagatch. 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

plenipotentiaries  of  Great   Britain,  France,   and  Japan 

considered  the  offer  adequate. 

But    Mr.    Wilson    demurred.     A    commercial    outlet 

through  foreign  territory,  he  said,  might  possibly  be  as 
/  good  as  a  direct  outlet  through  one's  own  territory  in 
i   peace-time,  but  not  in  time  of  war,  and,  after  all,  one 

J  must  bear  in  mind  the  needs  of  a  country  during  hostilities. 
In  the  mouth  of  the  champion  of  universal  peace  that  was 
an  unexpected  argument.  It  had  been  employed  by 
Italy  in  favor  of  her  claim  to  Fiume.  Mr.  Wilson  then 
met  it  by  invoking  the  economic  requirements  of  Jugo- 
slavia, and  by  declaring  that  the  Treaty  was  being  devised 
for  peace,  not  for  war,  that  the  League  of  Nations  would 
hinder  wars,  or  at  the  very  least  supply  the  deficiencies 
of  those  states  which  had  sacrificed  strategical  positions 
for  humanitarian  aims.  But  in  the  case  of  Bulgaria  he 
was  taking  what  seems  the  opposite  position  and  trans- 
gressing his  own  principle  of  nationality  in  order  to 
maintain  it. 

Mr.  Wilson,  pursuing  his  line  of  argument,  further 
pointed  out  that  the  Supreme  Council  had  not  accepted 
as  sufficient  for  Poland  an  outlet  through  German  terri- 
tory, but  had  created  the  city-state  of  Dantzig  in  order 
to  confer  a  greater  degree  of  security  upon  the  Polish 
republic.  To  that  M.  Venizelos  replied  that  there  was  no 
parity  between  the  two  instances.  Poland  had  no  outlet 
to  the  sea  except  through  Dantzig,  and  could  not,  there- 
fore, allow  that  one  to  remain  in  the  hands  of  an  un- 
friendly nation,  whereas  Bulgaria  already  possessed  two 
very  commodious  ports,  Varna  and  Burgas,  on  the  Black 
Sea,  which  becomes  a  free  sea  in  virtue  of  the  international- 
ization of  the  straits.  The  possession  of  a  third  outlet  on 
the  ^gean  could  not,  therefore,  be  termed  a  vital  question 
for  his  protegee.  Thus  the  comparison  with  Poland  was 
irrelevant. 

174 


AIMS  AND  METHODS 

If  Poland,  which  is  a  very  much  greater  state  than 
Bulgaria,  can  live  and  prosper  with  a  single  port,  and  that 
not  her  own — if  Rumania,  which  is  also  a  much  more 
numerous  and  powerful  nation,  can  thrive  with  a  single 
issue  to  the  sea,  by  what  line  of  argument,  M.  Venizelos 
asked,  can  one  prove  that  little  Bulgaria  requires  three 
or  four  exits,  and  that  her  need  justifies  the  abandonment 
to  her  tender  mercies  of  seven  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
Greeks  and  the  violation  of  one  of  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples underlying  the  new  moral  ordering. 

Compliance  v/ith  Bulgaria's  demand  would  prevent 
Greece  from  including  within  her  boundaries  the  three- 
quarters  of  a  million  Greeks  who  have  dwelt  in  Thrace 
for  twenty-five  centuries,  preserving  their  nationality  in- 
tact through  countless  disasters  and  tremendous  cata- 
clysms. Further,  the  Greek  Premier,  taking  a  leaf  from 
Wilson's  book,  turned  to  the  aspect  which  the  problem 
would  assume  in  war-time.  Bulgaria,  he  argued,  is  es- 
sentially a  continental  state,  whose  defense  does  not  de- 
pend upon  naval  strength,  whereas  Greece  contains  an 
island  population  of  nearly  a  million  and  a  half  and  looks 
for  protection  against  aggression  chiefly  to  naval  pre- 
cautions. In  case  of  w^ar,  Bulgaria,  if  her  claim  to  an 
issue  on  the  ^gean  were  allowed,  could  with  her  sub- 
marines delay  or  hinder  the  transport  and  concentration 
in  Macedonia  of  Greek  forces  from  the  islands  and  thus 
place  Greece  in  a  position  of  dangerous  inferiority. 

Lastly,  if  Greece's  claims  in  Thrace  were  rejected,  she 
would  have  a  population  of  1,790,000  souls  outside  her 
national  boundaries — that  is  to  say,  more  than  one-third 
of  the  population  which  is  within  her  state.  Would  this 
be  fair?  Of  the  total  population  of  Bulgarian  and 
Turkish  Thrace  the  Turks  and  Greeks  together  form 
85  per  cent.,  the  Bulgars  only  6  per  cent.,  and  the  latter 
nowhere  in  compact  masses.     Moreover — and  this  ought 

175 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

to  have  clinched  the  matter — the  Hellenic  population 
formed  an  absolute  as  well  as  a  relative  majority  in  the 
year  191 9. 

These  arguments  and  various  other  considerations 
drawn  from  the  inordinate  ambitions,  the  savage  cruelty/ 
and  the  Punic  faith  of  the  Bulgars  convinced  the  British, 
French,  and  Japanese  delegates  of  the  vsoundness  of 
Greece's  pleas,  and  they  sided  with  M.  Venizelos.  But 
Mr.  Wilson  clung  to  his  idea  with  a  tenacity  which  could 
not  be  justified  by  argument,  and  was  concurrently 
explained  by  motives  irrelevant  to  the  merits  of  the  case. 
Whether  the  influence  of  Bulgarophil  American  mission- 
aries and  strong  religious  leanings  were  at  the  root  of  his 
insistence,  as  was  generally  assumed,  or  whether  other 
considerations  weighed  with  him,  is  immaterial.  And 
yet  it  is  worth  recording  that  a  Bulgarian  journal  ^ 
announced  with  the  permission  of  the  governmental  cen- 
sor that  the  American  missionaries  in  Bulgaria  and  the 
professors  of  Robert  College  of  Constantinople  had  so 
primed  the  American  delegates  at  the  Conference  on  the 
question  of  Thrace,  and  generally  on  the  Bulgarian 
problem,  that  all  M.  Venizelos' s  pains  to  convince  them 
of  the  justice  of  his  contention  would  be  lost  labor."  ^ 

However  this  may  be,  Mr.  Wilson's  attitude  was  the 
subject  of  adverse  comment  throughout  Europe.  His 
implied  claim  to  legislate  for  the  world  and  to  take  over 

1  See  Rapports  et  Enquetes  de  la  Commission  Inleralliee  sur  les  Violations 
du  droit  des  gens  commises  en  Macedoine  Orientate  par  les  armces  hulgares. 
The  conclusion  of  the  report  is  one  of  the  most  terrible  indictments  ever 
drawn  up  by  impartial  investigators  against  what  is  practically  a  whole 
people. 

2  Zora,  August  nth.     Cf.  Le  Temps,  August  28,  1919. 

^  Mr.  Charles  House  published  a  statement  in  the  press  of  Saloniki  to 
the  effect  that  the  Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Missions  forbids 
missionaries  to  take  an  active  part  in  politics.  He  added  that  if  this  in- 
junction was  transgressed — and  in  Paris  the  current  belief  was  that  it  had 
been — it  would  not  be  tolerated  by  the  Missionary  Board,  nor  recognizecj 
by  the  American  government. 

176 


AIMS  AND  METHODS 

its  moral  leadership  earned  for  him  the  epithet  of  "Dic- 
tator," and  i)rovokcd  such  epigrammatic  comments  among 
his  own  countrymen  and  the  French  as  this:  "Louis  XIV 
said,  'I  am  the  state!'  Mr.  Wilson,  outdoing  him,  ex- 
claimed, *I  am  all  the  states!'" 

The  necessity  of  winning  over  dissentient  colleagues  to 
his  grandiose  scheme  of  world  reorganization  and  of  satis- 
fying their  demands,  which  were  of  a  nature  to  render 
that  scheme  abortive,  was  the  most  influential  agency  in 
impairing  his  energies  and  upsetting  his  plans.  This  re- 
mark assumes  what  unhajDpily  seems  a  fact,  that  those 
plans  were  mainly  mechanical.  It  is  certain  that  they 
made  no  provision  for  directly  influencing  the  masses,  lor 
giving  them  sympathetic  guidance,  and  enabling  them  to 
suffuse  with  social  sentiments  the  aspirations  and  striv- 
ings which  were  chiefly  of  the  materialistic  order,  with  a 
view  to  bringing  about  a  spiritual  transformation  of  the 
social  basis.  Indeed  we  have  no  evidence  that  the  need 
of  such  a  transformation  of  the  basis  of  political  thought, 
which  was  still  rooted  in  the  old  order,  was  grasped  by 
any  of  those  who  set  their  hand  to  the  legislative  part  of 
the  work. 

These  unfavorable  impressions  were  general.  Almost 
every  step  subsequently  taken  by  the  Conference  con- 
firmed them,  and  long  before  the  Treaty  was  presented  to 
the  Germans,  public  confidence  was  gone  in  the  ability 
of  the  Supreme  Council  to  attain  any  of  the  moral  vic- 
tories over  militarism,  race-hatred,  and  secret  intrigues 
which  its  leaders  had  encouraged  the  world  to  expect. 

"The  leaders  of  the  Conference,"  wrote  an  influential 
press  organ, ^  "are  under  suspicion.  They  may  not  know 
it,  but  it  is  true.  The  suspicion  is  doubtless  unjust,  but 
it  exists.  What  exists  is  a  fact;  and  men  who  ignore 
facts  are  not  statesmen.     The  only  way  to  deal  with  facts 

^  The  Daily  Mail  (Paris  edition),  March  31,  1919. 

177 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

is  to  face  them.  The  more  unpleasant  they  are  the  more 
they  need  to  be  faced. 

"Some  of  the  Conference  leaders  are  suspected  of  hav^- 
jng,  at  various  times  and  in  various  circumstances,  thought 
more  of  their  own  personal  and  political  positions  and 
ambitions  than  of  the  rapid  and  practical  making  of  peace. 
They  are  suspected,  in  a  word,  of  a  tendency  to  subordi- 
nate policy  to  politics. 

"In  regard  to  some  important  matters  they  are  sus- 
pected of  having  no  policy.  They  are  also  suspected  of 
unwillingness  to  listen  to  their  own  competent  advisers, 
who  could  lay  down  for  them  a  sound  policy.  Some  of 
them  are  even  suspected  of  being  under  the  spell  of  some 
benumbing  influence  that  paralyzes  their  will  and  befogs 
their  minds,  when  high  resolve  and  clear  visions  are 
needful." 

Another  accusation  of  the  same  tenor  was  thus  formu- 
lated :  "In  various  degrees  ^  and  with  different  qualities 
of  guilt  all  the  Allied  and  Associated  leaders  have  dallied 
with  dishonesty.  While  professing  to  seek  naught  save 
the  welfare  of  mankind,  they  have  harbored  thoughts  of 
self-interest.  The  result  has  been  a  progressive  loss  of 
faith  in  them  by  their  own  peoples  severally,  and  by  the 
Allied,  Associated,  and  neutral  peoples  jointly.  The  tide 
of  public  trust  in  them  has  reached  its  lowest  ebb." 

At  the  Conference,  as  w^e  saw,  the  President  of  the 
United  States  possessed  what  was  practically  a  veto  on 
nearly  all  matters  which  left  the  vital  interests  of  Britain 
and  France  intact.  And  he  frequently  exercised  it.  Thus 
the  dispute  about  the  Thracian  settlement  lay  not  between 
Bulgaria  and  Greece,  nor  between  Greece  and  the  Supreme 
Council,  but  between  Greece  and  Mr.  Wilson.  In  the 
quarrel  over  Fiume  and  the  Dalmatian  coast  it  was  the 
same.     When  the  Shantung  question  came  up  for  settle- 

1  The  Daily  Mail  (Paris  edition),  April  6,  1919. 

178 


AIMS  AND  METHODS 

ment  it  was  Mr.  Wilson  alone  who  dealt  with  it,  his  col- 
leagues, although  bound  by  their  promises  to  support 
Japan,  having  made  him  their  mouthpiece.  The  rigor  he 
displayed  in  dealing  with  some  of  the  smaller  countries 
was  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  indulgence  he  practised  toward 
the  Great  Powers.  Not  only  were  they  peremptorily  bid- 
den to  obey  without  discussion  the  behests  which  had 
been  brought  to  their  cognizance,  but  they  were  ordered, 
as  we  saw,  to  promise  to  execute  other  injunctions  which 
might  be  issued  by  the  Supreme  Council  on  certain  mat- 
ters in  the  future,  the  details  of  which  were  necessarily 
undetermined. 

In  order  to  stifle  any  velleities  of  resistance  on  the  part 
of  their  governments,  they  were  notified  that  America's 
economic  aid,  of  which  they  were  in  sore  need,  would 
depend  on  their  docility.  It  is  important  to  remember 
that  it  was  the  motive  thus  clearly  presented  that  deter- 
mined their  formal  assent  to  a  policy  which  they  depre- 
cated. A  Russian  statesman  summed  up  the  situation  in 
the  words:  "It  is  an  illustration  of  one  of  our  sayings, 
'Whose  bread  I  eat,  his  songs  I  sing.'"  Thus  it  was  re- 
ported in  July  that  an  agreement  come  to  by  the  financial 
group  Morgan  with  an  Italian  syndicate  for  a  yearly 
advance  to  Italy  of  a  large  sum  for  the  purchase  of  Ameri- 
can food  and  raw  stuffs  was  kept  in  abeyance  until  the 
Italian  delegation  should  accept  such  a  solution  of  the 
Adriatic  problem  as  Mr.  Wilson  could  approve.  The 
Russian  and  anti-Bolshevists  were  in  like  manner  com- 
pelled to  give  their  assent  to  certain  democratic  dogmas 
and  practices.  It  is  also  fair,  however,  to  bear  in  mind 
that  whatever  one  may  think  of  the  wisdom  of  the  policy 
pursued  by  the  President  toward  these  peoples,  the  mo- 
tives that  actuated  it  were  unquestionably  admirable,  and 
the  end  in  view  was  their  own  welfare,  as  he  understood  it. 
It  is  all  the  more  to  be  regretted  that  neither  the  argu- 
13  179 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

ments  nor  the  example  of  the  autocratic  delegates  were 
calculated  to  give  these  the  slightest  influence  over  the 
thought  or  the  unfettered  action  of  their  unwilling  wards. 
The  arrangements  carried  out  were  entirely  mechanical. 

In  the  course  of  time  after  the  vital  interests  of  Britain, 
France,  and  Japan  had  been  disposed  of,  and  only  those 
of  the  "lesser  states,"  in  the  more  comprehensive  sense  of 
this  term,  remained.  President  Wilson  exercised  supreme 
power,  wielding  it  with  firmness  and  encountering  no 
gainsay er.  Thus  the  peace  between  Italy  and  Austria 
was  put  off  from  month  to  month  because  he — and  only 
he — among  the  members  of  the  Supreme  Council  rejected 
the  various  projects  of  an  arrangement.  Into  the  merits 
of  this  dispute  it  would  be  unfruitful  to  enter.  That 
there  was  much  to  be  said  for  Mr.  Wilson's  contention, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  League  of  Nations,  and  also 
from  that  of  the  Jugoslavs,  will  not  be  denied.  That 
some  of  the  main  arguments  to  which  he  trusted  his  case 
were  invalidated  by  the  concessions  which  he  had  made 
to  other  countries  was  Italy's  contention,  and  it  cannot 
be  thrust  aside  as  untenable. 

At  last  Mr.  Wilson  ventured  on  a  step  which  challenged 
the  attention  and  stirred  the  disquietude  of  his  friends. 
He  despatched  a  note^  to  Turkey,  warning  her  that  if  the 
massacres  of  Armenians  were  not  discontinued  he  would 
withdraw  the  twelfth  of  his  Fourteen  Points,  which  pro- 
vides for  the  maintenance  of  Turkish  sovereignty  over 
undeniable  Turkish  territories.  The  intention  was  excel- 
lent, but  the  necessary  effects  of  his  action  were  contrary 
to  what  the  President  can  have  aimed  at.  He  had  not 
consulted  the  Conference  on  the  important  change  which 
he  was  about  to  make  respecting  a  point  which  was 


^Somewhere  between  August  17  and  20,  1919.  It  was  transmitted  by 
Admiral  Bristol,  American  men}bcr  of  tlie  Inter-Allied  Incjuiry  Mission  at 
Smyrna. 

iSo 


AIMS  AND   METHODS 

supposed  to  be  part  of  the  groundwork  of  the  new  order- 
ing. This  from  the  Conference  point  of  view  was  a 
momentous  decision,  which  could  be  taken  only  with  the 
consent  of  the  Supreme  Council.  Even  as  a  mere  threat 
it  was  worthless  if  it  did  not  stand  for  the  deliberate 
will  of  that  body  which  the  President  had  deemed  it 
superfluous  to  consult.  As  it  happened,  the  British 
authorities  were  just  then  organizing  a  body  of  gendarmes 
to  police  the  Turkish  territories  in  question,  and  they  were 
engaged  in  this  work  with  the  knowledge  and  approval 
of  the  Supreme  Council.  Mr.  Wilson's  announcement 
could  therefore  only  be  construed — and  was  construed — 
as  the  act  of  an  authority  superior  to  that  of  the  Council.* 
The  Turks,  who  are  shrewd  observers,  must  have  drawn 
the  obvious  conclusion  from  these  divergent  measures 
as  to  the  degree  of  harmony  prevailing  among  the  Allied 
and  Associated  Powers. 

M.  Clemenceau  had  a  conversation  on  the  subject  with 
Mr.  Polk,  who  explained  that  the  note  was  informal  and 
given  verbally,  and  conveyed  the  idea  only  of  one  nation 
in  connection  with  the  Armenian  situation.  This  explana- 
tion, accepted  by  the  French  government,  did  not  com- 
mend itself  to  public  opinion,  either  in  France  or  elsewhere. 
Moreover,  the  French  were  struck  by  another  aspect  of 
this  arbitrary  exercise  of  supreme  power.  "President 
Wilson,"  wrote  an  eminent  French  publicist,  "throws 
himself  into  the  attitude  of  a  man  who  can  bind  and 
loose  the  Turkish  Empire  at  the  very  moment  when  the 
Senate  appears  opposed  to  accepting  any  mandate, 
European  or  Asiatic,  at  the  moment  when  Mr.  Lansing 
declares  to  the  Congress  that  the  government  of  which 
he  is  a  member  does  not  desire  to  accept  any  mandate. 
But  is  it  not  obvious  that  if  Mr.  Wilson  sovereignly  deter- 
mines the  lot  of  Turkey  he  can  be  held  in  consequence  to 

^  Cf.  L'Echo  de  Paris,  August  28,  1919.     Article  by  Pertinax. 

181 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

the  performance  of  certain  duties  ?  We  have  often  had  to 
deplore  the  absence  of  poUcy  common  to  the  AlHes.  But 
has  each  one  of  them,  considered  separately,  at  least  a 
policy  of  its  own?  Does  it  take  action  otherwise  than  at 
haphazard,  yielding  to  the  impulse  of  a  general,  a  consul, 
or  a  missionary  ? "  ^ 

It  soon  became  manifest  even  to  the  most  obtuse  that 
whenever  the  Supreme  Council,  following  its  leaders 
and  working  on  such  lines  as  these,  terminated  its  labors, 
the  ties  between  the  political  communities  of  Europe 
would  be  just  as  flimsy  as  in  the  unregenerate  days  of 
secret  diplomacy,  secret  alliances,  and  secret  intrigues, 
unless  in  the  meanwhile  the  peoples  themselves  inter- 
vened to  render  them  stronger  and  more  enduring.  It 
would,  however,  be  the  height  of  unfairness  to  make 
Mr.  Wilson  alone  answerable  for  this  untoward  ending 
to  a  far  resonant  beginning.  He  had  been  accused  by  the 
press  of  most  countries  of  enwrapping  personal  ambition 
in  the  attractive  covering  of  disinterestedness  and  altru- 
ism, just  as  many  of  his  foreign  colleagues  were  said  to 
go  in  fear  of  the  "malady  of  lost  power."  But  charges  of 
this  nature  overstep  the  bounds  of  legitimate  criticism. 
Motive  is  hardly  ever  visible,  nor  is  it  often  deducible 
from  deliberate  action.  If,  for  example,  one  were  to 
infer  from  the  vast  territorial  readjustments  and  the  still 
vaster  demands  of  the  various  belligerents  at  the  Con- 
ference, the  motives  that  had  determined  them  to  enter 
the  war,  the  conclusion — except  in  the  case  of  the  Ameri- 
can people,  whose  disinterestedness  is  beyond  the  reach  of 
cavil — would  indeed  be  distressing.  The  President  of  the 
United  States  merited  well  of  all  nations  by  holding  up 
to  them  an  ideal  for  realization,  and  the  mere  announce- 
ment of  his  resolve  to  work  for  it  imparted  an  appreciable 
if  inadequate  incentive  to  men  of  good-will.     The  task, 

1  VEcho  de  Paris,  August  28,  1919.     Article  by  Pcrtinax. 

182 


AIMS  AND   METHODS 

however,  was  so  gigantic  that  he  cannot  have  gaged  its 
magnitude,  discerned  the  defects  of  the  instruments, 
nor  estimated  aright  the  force  of  the  hindrances  before 
taking  the  world  to  witness  that  he  would  achieve  it. 
Even  with  the  hearty  co-operation  of  ardent  colleagues 
and  the  adoption  of  a  sound  method  he  could  hardly 
have  hoped  to  do  more  than  clear  the  ground — perhaps 
lay  the  foundation-stone — of  the  structure  he  dreamt  of. 
But  with  the  partners  whom  circumstance  allotted  him, 
and  the  gainsayers  whom  he  had  raised  up  and  irritated 
in  his  own  country,  failure  was  a  foregone  conclusion 
from  the  first.  The  aims  after  which  most  of  the  Euro- 
pean governments  strove  were  sheer  incompatible  with 
his  own.  Doubtless  they  all  were  solicitous  about  the 
general  good,  but  their  love  for  it  was  so  general  and  so 
diluted  with  attachment  to  others'  goods  as  to  be  hardly 
discernible.  The  reproach  that  can  hardly  be  spared  to 
Mr.  Wilson,  however,  is  that  of  pusillanimity.  If  his 
faith  in  the  principles  he  had  laid  down  for  the  guidance 
of  nations  were  as  intense  as  his  eloquent  words  suggested, 
he  would  have  spurned  the  offer  of  a  sequence  of  high- 
sounding  phrases  in  lieu  of  a  resettlement  of  the  world. 
And  his  appeal  to  the  peoples  would  most  probably  have 
been  heard.  The  beacon  once  lighted  in  Paris  would 
have  been  answered  in  almost  every  capital  of  the  world. 
One  promise  he  kept  religiously:  he  did  not  return  to 
Washington  without  a  paper  covenant.  Is  it  more?  Is 
it  merely  a  paradox  to  assert  that  as  war  was  waged  in 
order  to  make  war  impossible,  so  a  peace  was  made  that 
will  render  peace  impossible? 


VI 

THE    LESSER   STATES 

BEFORE  the  Anglo-Saxon  statesmen  thus  set  them- 
selves to  rearrange  the  complex  of  interests,  forces, 
policies,  nationalities,  rights,  and  claims  which  con- 
stituted the  politico-social  world  of  191 9,  they  were  ex- 
pected to  deal  with  all  the  Allied  and  Associated  nations, 
without  favor  or  prejudice,  as  members  of  one  family. 
This  expectation  was  not  fulfilled.  It  may  not  have  been 
warranted.  From  the  various  discussions  and  decisions 
of  which  we  have  knowledge,  a  number  of  delegates  drew 
the  inference  that  France  was  destined  for  obvious  reasons 
to  occupy  the  leading  position  in  continental  Europe, 
under  the  protection  of  Anglo-Saxondom ;  and  that  a 
privileged  status  was  to  be  conferred  on  the  Jews  in 
eastern  Europe  and  in  Palestine,  while  the  other  states 
were  to  be  in  the  leading-strings  of  the  Four.  This  view 
was  not  lightly  expressed,  however  inadequately  it  may 
prove  to  have  been  then  supported  by  facts.  As  to  the 
desirability  of  forming  this  rude  hierarchy  of  states,  the 
principal  plenipotentiaries  were  said  to  have  been  in 
general  agreement,  although  responding  to  different  mo- 
tives. There  was  but  one  discordant  voice — that  of 
France — 'who  was  opposed  to  the  various  limitations  set 
to  Poland's  aggrandizement,  and  also  to  the  clause  placing 
the  Jews  under  the  direct  protection  of  the  League  of 
Nations,  and  investing  them  with  privileges  in  which  the 
races  among  whom  they  reside  are  not  allowed  to  par- 

184 


THE  LESSER   STATES 

ticipate.  Bulgaria  had  a  position  unique  in  her  class, 
for  she  was  luckier  than  most  of  her  peers  in  having 
enlisted  on  her  side  the  American  delegation  and  Mr. 
Wilson  as  leading  counsel  and  special  pleader  for  her 
claim  to  an  outlet  to  the  ^gean  Sea. 

At  the  Conference  each  state  was  dealt  with  according 
to  its  class.  Entirely  above  the  new  law,  as  we  saw, 
stood  its  creators,  the  Anglo-Saxons.  To  all  the  others, 
including  the  French,  the  Wilsonian  doctrine  was  applied 
as  fully  as  was  compatible  with  its  author's  main  object, 
the  elaboration  of  an  instrument  which  he  could  take  back 
with  him  to  the  United  States  as  the  great  world  settle- 
ment. Within  these  limits  the  President  was  evidently 
most  anxious  to  apply  his  Fourteen  Points,  but  he  kept 
well  within  these.  Thus  he  would,  perhaps,  have  been 
quite  ready  to  insist  on  the  abandonment  by  Britain  of 
her  supremacy  on  the  seas,  on  a  radical  change  in  the 
international  status  of  Egypt  and  Ireland,  and  much 
else,  had  these  innovations  been  compatible  with  his  own 
special  object.  But  they  were  not.  He  was  apparently 
minded  to  test  the  matter  by  announcing  his  resolve  to 
moot  the  problem  of  the  freedom  of  the  seas,  but  when 
admonished  by  the  British  government  that  it  would 
not  even  brook  its  mention,  he  at  once  gave  it  up  and, 
presumably  drawing  the  obvious  inference  from  this 
downright  refusal,  applied  it  to  the  Irish,  Egyptian,  and 
other  issues,  which  were  forthwith  eliminated  from  the 
category  of  open  or  international  problems.  But  France's 
insistent  demand,  on  the  other  hand,  for  the  Rhine 
frontier  met  with  an  emphatic  refusal.^ 

The  social  reformer  is  disheartened  by  the  one-sided 
and  inexorable  way  in  which  maxims  proclaimed  to  be  of 
universal  application  were  restricted  to  the  second-class 
nations. 

^  In  February,  19 19. 

i8s 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

Russia's  case  abounds  in  illustrations  of  this  arbitrary, 
unjust,  and  impolitic  pressure.  The  Russians  had  been 
our  allies.  They  had  fought  heroically  at  the  time  when 
the  people  of  the  United  States  were,  according  to  their 
President,  "too  proud  to  fight."  They  were  essential 
factors  in  the  Allies'  victory,  and  consequently  entitled 
to  the  advantages  and  immunities  enjoyed  by  the  Western 
Powers.  In  no  case  ought  they  to  have  been  placed  on 
the  same  level  as  our  enemies,  and  in  lieu  of  recompense 
condemned  to  punishment.  And  yet  this  latter  con- 
ception of  their  deserts  was  not  wholly  new.  Soon  after 
their  defection,  and  when  the  Allies  were  plunged  in  the 
depths  of  despondency,  a  current  of  opinion  made  itself 
felt  among  certain  sections  of  the  Allied  peoples  tending 
to  the  conclusion  of  peace  on  the  basis  of  compensations 
to  Germany,  to  be  supplied  by  the  cession  of  Russian 
territory.  This  expedient  was  advocated  by  more  than 
one  statesman,  and  was  making  headway  when  fresh 
factors  arose  which  bade  fair  to  render  it  needless. 

At  the  Paris  Conference  the  spirit  of  this  conception 
may  still  have  survived  and  prompted  much  that  was 
done  and  much  that  was  left  unattempted.  Russia  was 
under  a  cloud.  If  she  was  not  classed  as  an  enemy  she 
was  denied  the  consideration  reserved  for  the  Allies  and 
the  neutrals.  Her  integrity  was  a  matter  of  indifference 
to  her  former  friends;  almost  every  people  and  nation- 
ality in  the  Russian  state  which  asked  for  independence 
found  a  ready  hearing  at  the  Supreme  Council.  And 
some  of  them  before  they  had  lodged  any  such  claim  were 
encouraged  to  lose  no  time  in  asking  for  separation.  In 
one  case  a  large  sum  of  money  and  a  mission  were  sent 
to  "create  the  independent  state  of  the  Ukraine,"  so 
impatient  were  peoples  in  the  West  to  obtain  a  substitute 
for  the  Russian  ally  whom  they  had  lost  in  the  East, 
and  great  was  their  consternation  when  their  proteges  mis- 

i86 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

spent  the  funds  and  made  common  cause  with  the 
Teutons. 

Disorganized  Russia  was  in  some  ways  a  godsend  to 
the  world's  administrators  in  Paris.  To  the  advocate  of 
alliances,  territorial  equilibrium,  and  the  old  order  of 
things  it  offered  a  facile  means  of  acquiring  new  help- 
mates in  the  East  by  emancipating  its  various  peoples 
in  the  name  of  right  and  justice.  It  held  out  to  the 
capitalists  who  deplored  the  loss  of  their  milliards  a 
potential  source  whence  part  of  that  loss  might  be  made 
good.^  To  the  zealots  of  the  League  of  Nations  it 
offered  an  unresisting  body  on  which  all  the  requisite 
operations  from  amputation  to  trepanning  might  be  per- 
formed  without  the  use  of  anesthetics. 

The  various  border  states  of  Russia  were  thus  quietly 
lopped  off  without  even  the  foreknowledge,  much  less  the 
assent,  of  the  patient,  and  without  any  pretense  at 
plebiscites.  Finland,  Esthonia,  Latvia,  Georgia  were 
severed  from  the  chaotic  Slav  state  offhandedly,  and 
the  warrant  was  the  doctrine  propounded  by  President 
Wilson — that  every  people  shall  be  free  to  choose  its  own 
mode  of  living  and  working.  Every'-  people?  Surely  not, 
remarked  unbiased  onlookers.  The  Egyptians,  the 
Irish,  the  Austrians,  the  Persians,  to  name  but  four 
among  many,  are  disqualified  for  the  exercise  of  these  in- 
defeasible rights.  Perhaps  with  good  reason?  Then 
modify  the  doctrine.  Why  this  difference  of  treatment? 
they  queried.  Is  it  not  because  the  supreme  judge  knows 
full  well  that  Great  Britain  would  not  brook  the  discus- 
sion of  the  Egyptian  or  the  Irish  problem,  and  that 
France,  in  order  to  feel  quite  secure,  must  hinder  the 
Austrian-Germans  from   coalescing  with  their  brethren 


1  The  French  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  M.  Pichon,  undertook  to 
recognize  in  principle  the  independence  of  Esthonia,  provided  that  Estho- 
nia would  take  over  her  part  of  the  Russian  debt. 

187 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

of  the  Reich?  But  if  Britain  and  France  have  the  right 
to  veto  every  self-denying  measure  that  smacks  of  dis- 
ruption or  may  involve  a  sacrifice,  why  is  Russia  bereft 
of  it?  If  the  principle  involved  be  of  any  value  at  all, 
its  application  must  be  universal.  To  an  equal  all- 
round  distribution  of  sacrifice  the  only  alternative  is  the 
supremacy  of  force  in  the  service  of  arbitrary  rule.  And 
to  this  force,  accordingly,  the  Supreme  Council  had 
recourse.  The  only  cases  in  which  it  seriously  vindicated 
the  rights  of  oppressed  or  dissatisfied  peoples  to  self- 
determination  against  the  will  of  the  ruling  race  or  nation 
were  those  in  which  that  race  or  nation  was  powerless  to 
resist.  Whenever  Britain  or  France's  interests  were 
deemed  to  be  imperiled  by  the  putting  in  force  of  any 
of  the  Fourteen  Points,  Mr.  Wilson  desisted  from  its 
application.  Thus  it  came  about  that  Russia  was  put 
on  the  same  plane  with  Germany  and  received  similar, 
in  some  respects,  indeed,  sterner,  treatment.  The  Ger- 
mans were  at  least  permitted  to  file  objections  to  the 
conditions  imposed  and  to  point  out  flaws  in  the  arrange- 
ments drafted,  and  their  representations  sometimes 
achieved  their  end.  It  was  otherwise  with  the  Russians. 
They  were  never  consulted.  And  when  their  representa- 
tives in  Paris  respectfully  suggested  that  all  such  changes 
as  might  be  decided  upon  by  the  Great  Powers  during  their 
country's  political  disablement  should  be  taken  to  be 
provisional  and  be  referred  for  definite  settlement  to  the 
future  constituent  assembly,  the  request  was  ignored. 

Of  psychological  rather  than  political  interest  was 
Mr.  Wilson's  conscientious  hesitation  as  to  whether  the 
nationalities  which  he  was  preparing  to  liberate  were 
sufficiently  advanced  to  be  intrusted  with  self-government. 
As  stated  elsewhere,  his  first  impulse  would  seem  to  have 
been  to  appoint  mandatories  to  administer  the  territories 
severed  from  Russia.   The  mandatory  arrangement  under 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

the  ubiquitous  League  is  said  to  have  been  his  own. 
Presumably  he  afterward  acquired  the  beHef  that  the 
system  might  be  wisely  dispensed  with  in  the  case  of  some 
of  Russia's  border  states,  for  they  soon  afterward  re- 
ceived promises  of  independence  and  implicitly  of  protec- 
tion against  future  encroachments  by  a  resuscitated 
Russia. 

In  this  connection  a  scene  is  worth  reproducing  which 
was  enacted  at  the  Peace  Table  before  the  system  of  ad- 
ministering certain  territories  by  proxy  was  fully  elabo- 
rated. At  one  of  the  sittings  the  delegates  set  themselves 
to  determine  what  countries  should  be  thus  governed/ 
and  it  was  understood  that  the  mandatory  system  was  to 
be  reserved  for  the  German  colonies  and  certain  provinces 
of  the  Turkish  Empire.  But  in  the  course  of  the  con- 
versation Mr.  Wilson  casually  made  use  of  the  expression, 
"The  German  colonies,  the  territories  of  the  Turkish 
Empire  and  other  territories."  One  of  the  delegates 
promptly  put  the  question,  "What  other  territories?" 
to  which  the  President  replied,  unhesitatingly,  "Those 
of  the  late  Russian  Empire."  Then  he  added  by  way  of 
explanation:  "We  are  constantly  receiving  petitions  from 
peoples  who  lived  hitherto  under  the  scepter  of  the 
Tsars — Caucasians,  Central  Asiatic  peoples,  and  others — 
who  refuse  to  be  ruled  any  longer  by  the  Russians  and 
yet  are  incapable  of  organizing  viable  independent  states 
of  their  own.  It  is  meet  that  the  desires  of  these  nations 
should  be  considered."  At  this  the  Czech  delegate, 
Doctor  Kramarcz,  flared  up  and  exclaimed:  "Russia? 
Cut  up  Russia?  But  what  about  her  integrity?  Is  that 
to  be  sacrificed?"  But  his  words  died  away  without 
evoking  a  response.  "Was  there  no  one,"  a  Russian 
afterward  asked,  "to  remind  those  representatives  of  the 

^  In  the  first  version  of  the  Covenant,  Article  XIX  deals  with  this  sub- 
ject.    In  the  revised  version  it  is  Article  XXI. 

189 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

Great  Powers  of  their  righteous  wrath  with  Germany 
when  the  Brest-Litovsk  treaty  was  promulgated?" 

Toward  Italy,  who,  unlike  Russia,  was  not  treated  as  an 
enemy,  but  as  relegated  to  the  category  of  lesser  states, 
the  attitude  of  President  Wilson  was  exceptionally  firm 
and  uncompromising.  On  the  subject  of  Fiume  and 
Dalmatia  he  refused  to  yield  an  inch.  In  vain  the 
Italian  delegation  argued,  appealed,  and  lowered  its 
claims.  Mr.  Wilson  was  adamant.  It  is  fair  to  admit 
that  in  no  other  way  could  he  have  contrived  to  get  even 
a  simulacrum  of  a  League.  Unless  the  weak  states  were 
awed  into  submitting  to  sacrifices  for  the  great  aim  which 
he  had  made  his  own,  he  must  return  to  Washington  as 
the  champion  of  a  manifestly  lost  cause.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  his  thesis  v/as  not  destitute 
of  arguments  to  support  it.  Accordingly  the  deadlock 
went  on  for  months,  until  the  Italian  Cabinet  fell  and 
people  wearied  of  the  Adriatic  problems. 

Poland  was  another  of  the  communities  which  had  to 
bend  before  Anglo-Saxon  will,  represented  in  her  case 
mainly  by  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  not,  however,  without  the 
somewhat  tardy  backing  of  his  colleague  from  Washing- 
ton. It  is  important  for  the  historian  and  the  political 
student  to  observe  that  as  the  British  Premier  was  not 
credited  with  any  profound  or  original  ideas  about  the 
severing  or  soldering  of  east  European  territories,  the 
authorship  of  the  powerful  and  successful  opposition 
to  the  allotting  of  Dantzig  to  Poland  was  rightly  or 
wrongly  ascribed  not  to  him,  but  to  what  is  euphemisti- 
cally termed  "international  finance"  lurking  in  the  back- 
ground, whose  interest  in  Poland  was  obviously  keen, 
and  whose  influence  on  the  Supreme  Council,  although 
less  obvious,  was  believed  to  be  far-reaching.  The  same 
explanation  was  currently  suggested  for  the  fixed  resolve 
of  Mr.  Lloyd  George  not  to  assign  Upper  Silesia  to  Poland 

190 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

without  a  plebiscite.  His  own  account  of  the  matter  was 
that  although  the  inhabitants  were  Polish — they  are  as  two 
to  one  compared  with  the  Germans — it  was  conceivable 
that  they  entertained  leanings  toward  the  Germans,  and 
might  therefore  desire  to  throw  in  their  lot  with  these. 
When  one  compares  this  scrupulous  respect  for  the  likes 
and  dislikes  of  the  inhabitants  of  that  province  with  the 
curt  refusal  of  the  same  men  at  first  to  give  ear  to  the 
ardent  desire  of  the  Austrians  to  unite  with  the  Germans, 
or  to  abide  by  a  plebiscite  of  the  inhabitants  of  Fiume  or 
Teschen,  one  is  bewildered.  The  British  Premier's  wish 
was  opposed  by  the  official  body  of  experts  appointed  to 
report  on  the  matter.  Its  members  had  no  misgivings. 
The  territory,  they  said,  belonged  of  right  to  Poland, 
the  great  majority  of  its  population  was  unquestionably 
Polish,  and  the  practical  conclusion  was  that  it  should 
be  handed  over  to  the  Polish  government  as  soon  as 
feasible.  Thereupon  the  staff  of  the  commission  was 
changed  and  new  members  were  substituted  for  the  old.^ 
But  that  was  not  enough.  The  British  Premier  still  en- 
countered such  opposition  among  his  foreign  colleagues 
that  it  was  only  by  dint  of  wordy  warfare  and  stubborn- 
ness that  he  finally  won  his  point. 

The  stipulation  for  which  the  first  British  delegate  toiled 
thus  laboriously  was  that  within  a  fortnight  after  the 
ratification  of  the  Treaty  the  German  and  Polish  forces 
should  evacuate  the  districts  in  which  the  plebiscite  was 
to  be  held,  that  the  Workmen's  Councils  there  should  be 
dissolved,  and  that  the  League  of  Nations  should  take 
over  the  government  of  the  district  so  as  to  allow  the 
population  to  give  full  expression  to  its  will.  But  the 
League  of  Nations  did  not  exist  and  could  not  be  consti- 
tuted for  a  considerable  time.     It  was  therefore  decided  ^ 


^  Cf.  L'Echo  de  Paris,  August  19,  1919. 
*  In  July,  1919. 

191 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

that  some  temporary  substitute  for  the  League  should  be 
formed  at  once,  and  the  Supreme  Council  decided  that 
Inter- Allied  troops  should  occupy  the  districts.  That  was 
the  first  instalment  of  the  price  to  be  paid  for  the  British 
Premier's  tenderness  for  plebiscites,  which  the  expert  com- 
missions deprecated  as  unnecessary,  and  which,  as  events 
proved  in  this  case,  were  harmful. 

In  the  meanwhile  Bolshevist — some  said  German — ■ 
agents  were  stirring  up  the  population  by  suasion  and  by 
terrorism  until  it  finally  began  to  ferment.  Thousands 
of  working-men  responded  to  the  goad,  "turned  down" 
their  tools  and  ceased  work.  Thereupon  the  coal-fields 
of  Upper  Silesia,  the  production  of  which  had  already 
dropped  by  50  per  cent,  since  the  preceding  November, 
ceased  to  produce  anything.  This  consummation  grieved 
the  Suprem^e  Council,  which  turned  for  help  to  the  Inter- 
Allied  armies.  For  the  Silesian  coal-fields  represented 
about  one-third  of  Germany's  production,  and  both  France 
and  Italy  were  looking  to  Germany  for  part  of  their  fuel- 
supply.  The  French  press  pertinently  asked  whether  it 
would  not  have  been  cheaper,  safer,  and  more  efficacious 
to  have  forgone  the  plebiscite  and  relied  on  the  Polish 
troops  from  the  outset.^  For,  however  ideal  the  intentions 
of  Mr.  Lloyd  George  may  have  been,  the  net  result  of  his 
insistence  on  a  plebiscite  was  to  enable  an  ex-newspaper 
vender  named  Hoersing,  who  had  undertaken  to  prevent 
the  detachment  of  Upper  Silesia  from  Germany,  to  set 
his  machinery  for  agitation  in  motion  and  cause  general 
unrest  in  the  Silesian  and  Dombrova  coal-mining  districts. 
When  the  strike  was  declared  the  workmen,  who  are  Poles 
to  a  man,  rejected  all  suggestions  that  they  should  refer 
their  grievances  to  arbitration  courts.  For  these  tribunals 
were  conducted  by  Germans.  The  consequence  of  Mr. 
Lloyd  George's  spirited  intervention  was,  in  the  words  of 

1  L'Echo  de  Paris,  August  19,  191 9. 

19? 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

an  unbiased  observer,  to  "raise  the  specters  of  starvation, 
freezing  and  Bolshevism  in  eastern  Europe"  during  the 
ensuing  winter — a  heavy  price  to  pay  for  pedantic  ad- 
herence to  the  letter  of  an  irrelevant  ordinance,  at  a 
moment  when  the  spirit  of  basic  principles  was  being  al- 
lowed to  evaporate. 

Rumania  was  chastened  and  qualified  in  severer  fashion 
for  admission  to  the  sodality  of  nations  until  her  delegates 
quitted  the  Conference  in  disgust,  struck  out  their  own 
policy,  and  courteously  ignored  the  Great  Powers.  Then 
the  Supreme  Council  changed  its  note  for  the  moment 
and  abandoned  the  position  which  it  had  taken  up  re- 
specting the  armistice  with  Hungary,  to  revert  to  it 
shortly  afterward.^  The  joy  with  which  the  upshot  of 
this  revolt  was  hailed  by  all  the  lesser  states  was  an  evil 
omen.  For  their  antipathy  toward  the  Supreme  Council 
had  long  before  hardened  into  a  sentiment  much  more 
intense,  and  any  stick  seemed  good  enough  to  break  the 
rod  of  the  self-constituted  governors  of  the  planet. 

The  concrete  result  of  this  tinkering  and  cobbling  could 
only  be  a  ramshackle  structure,  built  without  any  refer- 
ence to  the  canons  of  political  architecture.  It  was  shaped 
neither  by  the  Fourteen  Points  nor  by  the  canons  of  the 
balance  of  power  and  territory.  It  was  hardly  more  than 
an  abortive  attempt  to  make  a  synthesis  of  the  two. 
Created  by  force,  it  could  be  perpetuated  only  by  force; 
but  if  symptoms  are  to  be  trusted,  it  is  more  likely  to  be 
broken  up  by  force.  As  an  American  press  organ  re- 
marked in  August:  "The  Council  of  Five  complains  that 
no  one  now  condescends  to  recognize  the  League  of  Na- 
tions.    Even  the  small  nations  are  buying  war  material, 

^  The  armistice  concluded  with  Hungary  was  grossly  violated  by  the  Hun- 
garians and  had  lost  its  force.  The  Rumanians,  when  occupying  the  coun- 
try, demanded  a  new  one,  and  drafted  it.  The  Supreme  Council  at  first 
demurred,  and  then  desisted  from  dictation.  But  its  attitude  underwent 
further  changes  later. 

193 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

quite  oblivious  of  the  fact  that  there  are  to  be  no  more 
wars,  now  that  the  League  is  there  to  prevent  them. 
Sweden  is  buying  large  supplies  from  Germany,  and  Spain 
is  sending  a  commission  to  Paris  to  negotiate  for  some  of 
France's  war  equipment."  ^ 

Belgium,  too,  was  treated  with  scant  consideration. 
The  praise  lavished  on  her  courageous  people  during  the 
war  was  apparently  deemed  an  adequate  recompense  for 
the  sacrifices  she  had  made  and  the  losses  she  endured. 
For  the  revision  of  the  treaties  of  1839,  indispensable  to 
the  economic  development  of  the  country,  no  diplomatic 
preparation  was  made  down  to  May,  and  among  the 
Treaty  clauses  then  drafted  Belgium's  share  of  justice  was 
so  slight  and  insufficient  that  the  unbiased  press  pub- 
lished sharp  strictures  on  the  forgetfulness  or  egotism  of 
the  Supreme  Council.  "The  little  that  has  leaked  out  of 
the  decisions  taken  regarding  the  conditions  which  affect 
Belgium,"  wrote  one  journal,  "has  caused  not  only  bitter 
disappointment  in  Belgirun,  but  also  indignation  every- 
where. .  .  .  The  Allies  having  decided  not  to  accord  moral 
satisfaction  to  Belgium  (they  chose  Geneva  as  the  capital 
of  the  League  of  Nations),  it  was  perhaps  to  be  expected 
that  they  would  not  accord  her  material  satisfaction. 
And  such  expectations  are  being  fulfilled.  The  Limburg 
province,  annexed  to  Holland  in  1839,  the  province  which 
gave  the  retreating  enemy  unlawful  refuge  in  1 918,  a  rank 
violation  of  Dutch  neutrality,  is  apparently  not  to  be 
restored  to  Belgium.  Even  the  right,  vital  to  the  safety 
and  welfare  of  Belgium,  the  right  of  unimpeded  naviga- 
tion of  the  Scheldt  between  Antwerp  and  the  sea,  has  not 
yet  been  conceded.  And  the  raw  material  that  is  indis- 
pensable if  Belgian  industry  is  to  be  revived  is  withheld; 
the  Allies,  however,  are  quite  willing  to  flood  the  country 
with  manufactured  articles."  - 

1  The  New  York  Herald,  (Paris  ed.),  August  20, 1919.     ^  Ibid.,  May  4, 1919. 

194 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

And  yet  Belgium's  demands  were  extremely  modest.* 
They  were  formulated,  not  as  the  guerdon  for  her  heroic 
defense  of  civilization,  but  as  a  plain  corollary  flowing 
direct  from  each  and  every  principle  officially  recognized 
by  the  heads  of  the  Conference — right,  nationality,  legiti- 
mate guarantees,  and  economic  requirements.  Tested 
by  any  or  all  of  these  accepted  touchstones,  everything 
asked  for  was  reasonable  and  fair  in  itself,  and  seemingly 
indispensable  to  the  durability  of  the  new  world-structure 
which  the  statesmen  were  endeavoring  to  raise  on  the 
ruins  of  the  old.  Belgium's  forlorn  political  and  territorial 
plight  embodied  all  the  worst  vices  of  the  old  balance 
of  power  stigmatized  by  President  Wilson:  the  mutila- 
tion of  the  country;  the  forcible  separation  of  sections 
of  its  population  from  each  other;  the  distribution  of 
these  lopped,  ethnic  fragments  among  alien  states  and 
dynasties;  the  control  of  her  waterways  handed  over  to 
commercial  rivals;  the  transformation  of  cities  and  dis- 
tricts that  were  obviously  destined  to  figure  among  her 
sources  of  national  well-being  and  centers  of  culture 
into  dead  towns  that  paralyze  her  effort  and  hinder  her 
progress.  In  a  word,  Belgium  had  had  no  political 
existence  for  her  own  behoof.  She  was  not  an  organic 
unit  in  the  sodality  of  nations,  but  a  mere  cog  in  the 
mechanism  of  European  equilibrium. 

Ruined  by  the  war,  Belgium  was  sorely  tried  by  the 
Peace  Conference.  She  complained  of  two  open  w^ounds 
which  poisoned  her  existence,  stunted  her  economic 
growth,  and  rendered  her  self-defense  an  impossibility: 
the  vast  gap  of  Limburg  on  the  east  and  the  blocking 
of  the  Scheldt  on  the  west.  The  great  national  reduit, 
Antwerp,  cut  off  from  the  sea,  inaccessible  to  succor  in 


^  I  discussed  Belgium's  demands  in  a  series  of  special  articles  published 
in  The  London  Daily  Telegraph  and  The  Philadelphia  Public  Ledger  in  the 
months  of  January,  February,  and  March,  1919. 

14  19s 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

case  of  war,  on  the  one  side,  and  Limburg  opening  to 
Germany's  armies  the  road  through  central  Belgium, 
on  the  other — these  were  the  two  standing  dangers  which 
it  was  hoped  would  be  removed.  How  dangerous  they 
are  events  had  demonstrated.  In  October,  19 14,  Antwerp 
fell  because  Holland  had  closed  the  Scheldt  and  forbidden 
the  entrance  to  warships  and  transports,  and  in  Novem- 
ber, 1 91 8,  a  German  army  of  over  seventy  thousand  men 
eluded  pursuit  by  the  Allies  by  passing  through  Dutch 
Limburg,  carrying  with  them  vast  war  materials  and 
booty.  Militarily  Belgium  is  exposed  to  mortal  perils 
so  long  as  the  treaties  which  ordained  this  preposterous 
division  of  territories  are  maintained  in  vigor. 

Economically,  too,  the  consequences,  especially  of  the 
status  of  the  Scheldt,  are  admittedly  baleful.  To  Holland 
the  river  is  practically  useless — indeed,  the  only  advantage 
it  could  confer  would  be  the  power  of  impeding  the  growth 
and  prosperity  of  Antwerp  for  the  benefit  of  its  rival, 
Rotterdam.  All  that  the  Belgians  desired  there  was  the 
complete  control  of  their  national  river,  with  the  right 
of  carrying  out  the  works  necessary  to  keep  it  navigable. 
A  like  demand  was  put  forward  for  the  canal  of  Terneuzen, 
which  links  the  city  of  Ghent  with  the  Scheldt;  and  the 
suppression  of  the  checks  and  hindrances  to  Belgium's 
free  communications  with  her  hinterland — i.e.,  the  basins 
of  the  Meuse  and  the  Rhine.  From  every  point  of 
view,  including  that  of  international  law,  the  claims 
made  were  at  once  modest  and  grounded.  But  the 
Supreme  Council  had  no  time  to  devote  to  such  sub- 
sidiary matters,  and.  like  more  momentous  issues,  they 
were  adjourned. 

The  Belgian  delegation  did  not  ask  that  Holland's 
territory  should  be  curtailed.  On  the  contrary,  they 
would  have  welcomed  its  increase  by  the  addition  of 
territory  inhabited  by  people  of  her  own  idiom,  under 

196 


THE   LESSER  STATES 

German  sway.^  But  the  Dutch  demurred,  as  Denmark 
had  done  in  the  matter  of  the  third  Schleswig  zone,  for 
fear  of  offending  Germany.  And  the  Supreme  Council 
acquiesced  in  the  refusal.  Again,  when  issues  were  under 
discussion  that  turned  upon  the  Rhine  country  and 
affected  Belgian  interests,  her  delegates  were  never  con- 
sulted. They  were  systematically  ignored  by  the  Con- 
ference. When  the  capital  of  the  League  of  Nations 
was  to  be  chosen,  their  hopes  that  Brussels  would  be 
deemed  worthy  of  the  honor  were  blasted  by  President 
Wilson  himself.  One  of  the  American  delegates  informed 
a  foreign  colleague  "that  the  capital  of  the  League  must 
be  situate  in  a  tranquil  country,  must  have  a  steady, 
settled  population  and  a  really  good  climate."  "A  good 
climate?"  asked  a  continental  statesman.  "Then  why 
not  choose  Monte  Carlo?" 

But  the  decision  in  favor  of  Geneva  was  sent  by  couner 
from  Switzerland  ready  made  to  President  Wilson.  The 
chief  grounds  which  lent  color  to  the  belief  that  religious 
bias  played  a  larger  part  in  the  Conference's  decisions 
than  was  apparent  were  the  following:  It  was  from 
Geneva  that  the  spirit  of  religious  and  political  liberty 
first  went  forth  to  be  incarnated  among  the  various 
nations  of  the  world.  It  is  to  John  Calvin,  rather  than 
to  Martin  Luther,  that  the  birth  of  the  Scotch  Covenanters 
and  of  English  Puritanism  is  traceable.  Hence  Geneva 
is  the  parent  of  New  England.  So,  too,  it  was  Rousseau — 
a  true  child  of  Calvin — who  was  the  author  of  America's 
Declaration  of  Independence.  Again,  one  of  the  first 
pacifists  and  advocates  of  international  arbitration  was 
bom  in  Geneva.  John  Knox  sat  for  two  years  at  the  feet 
of  Calvin.  Consequently  the  Puritan  Revolution,  the 
French  Revolution,  and  the  American  Revolution  all 
had  their  springs  in  Geneva. 

1  In  Frisia  and  Ghelderland. 

197 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

These  were  the  considerations  which  weighed  with 
President  Wilson  when  he  refused  to  fix  his  choice  on 
Brussels.  In  vain  the  Belgians  argued  and  pleaded, 
urging  that  if  the  Conference  were  to  vote  for  London, 
Washington,  or  Paris,  they  would  receive  the  announce- 
ment with  respectful  acquiescence,  but  that  among  the 
lesser  states  they  conceived  that  their  country's  claims 
were  the  best  grounded.  To  the  Americans  who  objected 
that  Switzerland's  mountains  and  lakes,  being  free  from 
hateful  war  memories,  offer  more  fitting  surroundings 
for  the  capital  of  the  League  of  Peace  than  Brussels,  where 
vestiges  of  the  odious  struggle  will  long  survive,  they 
answered  that  they  could  only  regret  that  Belgium's 
resistance  to  the  lawless  invaders  should  be  taken  to 
disqualify  her  for  the  honor. 

It  is  worth  while  pursuing  this  matter  a  step  farther. 
The  Federal  Council  in  Berne  having  soon  afterward 
officially  recommended  ^  the  nation  to  enter  the  League 
which  guarantees  it  neutrality,^  an  illuminating  discussion 
ensued.  And  it  was  elicited  that  as  there  is  an  obligation 
imposed  on  all  member-states  to  execute  the  decrees  of 
the  League  for  the  coercion  of  rebellious  fellow-members, 
it  follows  that  in  such  cases  Switzerland,  too,  would  be 
obliged  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  struggle  between  the 
League  and  the  recalcitrant  country.  From  military 
operations,  however,  Switzerland  is  dispensed,  but  it 
would  certainly  be  bound  to  adopt  economic  measures  of 
pressure,  and  to  this  extent  abandon  its  neutrality.  Now 
not  only  would  that  attitude  be  construed  by  the  dis- 
obedient nation  as  unfriendly,  and  the  usual  consequences 
drawn  from  it,  but  as  Switzerland  is  freed  from  military 
co-operation,  it  follows  that  the  League  could  not  fix  the 


*  In  August,  1919. 

2  By  Article  XXI  of  the  Covenant  and  Article  CCCCXXXV  of  the 
Treaty. 

198 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

headquarters  of  its  military  command  in  its  own  capital, 
Geneva,  as  that  would  constitute  a  violation  of  Swiss 
neutrality.  And,  if  it  did,  Switzerland  would  in  self- 
defense  be  bound  to  oppose  the  decision ! 

The  Belgians  were  discouraged  by  the  disdainful  de- 
meanor and  grudging  disposition  of  the  Supreme  Council, 
and  irritated  by  the  arbitrariness  of  its  decrees  and  the 
indefensible  way  in  which  it  applied  principles  that  were 
propounded  as  sacred.  Before  restoring  the  diminutive 
cantons  of  Eupen  and  Malmedy  to  Belgium,  for  example, 
Mr.  Wilson  insisted  on  ascertaining  the  will  of  the  popu- 
lation by  plebiscite.  In  itself  the  measure  was  reason- 
able, but  the  position  of  these  little  districts  was  substan- 
tially on  all-fours  with  Alsace-Lorraine,  which  was  re- 
stored to  France  without  any  such  test.  In  Fiume,  also, 
the  will  of  the  inhabitants  went  for  notliing,  Mr.  Wilson 
refusing  to  consult  them.  Further,  Austria,  whose  people 
were  known  to  favor  union  with  Germany,  was  systemati- 
cally jockeyed  into  ruinous  isolation.  "Now  what,  in 
the  Hght  of  these  conflicting  judgments,"  asked  the  Bel- 
gians, "is  the  true  meaning  of  the  principle  of  self-deter- 
mination?" The  only  reply  they  received  was  that  Mr. 
Wilson  was  right  when  he  told  his  fellow-countrymen  that 
his  principles  stood  in  need  of  interpretation,  and  that,  as 
he  was  the  sole  authorized  interpreter,  his  presence  was 
required  in  Europe. 

In  money  matters,  too,  the  chief  plenipotentiaries  can 
hardly  be  acquitted  of  something  akin  to  niggardliness 
toward  the  country  which  had  saved  theirs  from  a  catas- 
trophe. Down  to  the  month  of  May,  192 1,  two  and  a 
half  milliard  francs  was  the  maximum  sum  allotted  to 
Belgium  by  the  Supreme  Council.  And  for  the  work  of 
restoring  the  devastated  country,  which  the  Great  Powers 
had  spontaneously  promised  to  accomplish,  it  was  alleged 
by  experts  to  be  wholly  inadequate.     Other  financial 

199 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

grievances  were  ignored — for  a  time.  Further,  it  was  de- 
cided that  Germany  should  surrender  her  African  colonies 
to  the  Great  Powers;  yet  Belgium,  who  contributed  mate- 
rially to  their  conquest,  was  not  to  be  associated  with  them. 

Irritated  by  this  illiberality,  the  Belgian  delegation,  hav- 
ing consulted  with  M.  Renkin,  to  whose  judgment  in  these 
matters  special  weight  attached,  resolved  to  make  a  firm 
stand,  and  refused  to  sign  the  Treaty  unless  at  least  cer- 
tain modest  financial,  economic,  and  colonial  claims, 
which  ought  to  have  been  settled  spontaneously,  were 
accorded  under  pressure.  And  the  Supreme  Council, 
rather  than  be  arraigned  before  the  world  on  the  charge 
of  behaving  unjustly  as  well  as  ungenerously  toward 
Belgium,  ultimately  gave  way,  leaving,  however,  an  im- 
pression behind  which  seemed  as  indelible  as  it  was  pro- 
found. .  .  . 

The  domination  which  is  now  being  exercised  by  the 
principal  Powers  over  the  remaining  states  of  the  world  is 
fraught  with  consequences  which  were  not  foreseen,  and 
have  not  yet  been  realized  by  those  who  established  it. 
Among  the  least  momentous,  but  none  the  less  real,  is  one 
to  which  Belgium  is  exposed.  Hitherto  there  was  a  lan- 
guage problem  in  that  heroic  country  which,  being  an 
internal  controversy,  could  be  settled  without  noteworthy 
perturbations  by  the  good-will  of  the  Walloons  and  the 
Flemings.  The  danger,  which  one  fervently  hopes  will 
be  warded  off,  consists  in  the  possible  transformation  of 
that  dispute  into  an  international  question,  in  consequence 
of  possible  accords  of  a  military  or  economic  nature.  The 
subject  is  too  delicate  to  be  handled  by  a  foreigner,  and 
the  Belgian  people  are  too  practical  and  law-loving  not 
to  avoid  unwary  steps  that  might  turn  a  linguistic  prob- 
lem into  a  racial  issue. 

The  Supreme  Council  soon  came  to  be  looked  upon  as 
the  prototype  of  the  future  League,  and  in  that  light  its 

200 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

action  was  sharply  scrutinized  by  all  whom  the  League 
concerned.  Foremost  among  these  were  the  representa- 
tives of  the  lesser  states,  or,  as  they  were  termed,  "states 
with  limited  interests."  This  band  of  patriots  had  pil- 
grimaged to  Paris  full  of  hope  for  their  respective  coun- 
tries, having  drunk  in  avidly  the  unstinted  praise  and 
promises  which  had  served  avS  pabulum  for  their  attach- 
ment to  the  Allied  cause  during  the  war.  But  their  illu- 
sions were  short-lived.  At  one  of  their  first  meetings  with 
the  delegates  of  the  Great  Powers  a  storm  burst  which 
scattered  their  expectations  to  the  winds.  When  the  sky 
cleared  it  was  discovered  that  from  indispensable  fellow- 
workers  they  had  shrunk  to  dwarfish  protegees,  mere 
units  of  an  inferior  category,  who  were  to  be  told  what  to 
do  and  would  be  constrained  to  do  it  thoroughly  if  not 
unmurmuringly. 

At  the  historic  sitting  of  January  26th,  the  delegates  of 
the  lesser  states  protested  energetically  against  the  purely 
decorative  part  assigned  to  them  at  a  Conference  in  the 
decisions  of  which  their  peoples  were  so  intensely  inter- 
ested. The  Canadian  Minister,  having  spoken  of  the 
"proposal"  of  the  Great  Powers,  was  immediately  cor- 
rected by  M.  Clemenceau,  who  brusquely  said  that  it  was 
not  a  proposal,  but  a  decision,  which  w^as  therefore  de- 
finitive and  final.  Thereupon  the  Belgian  delegate,  M. 
Hymans,  delivered  a  masterly  speech,  pleading  for  genu- 
ine discussion  in  order  to  elucidate  matters  that  so  closely 
concerned  them  all,  and  he  requested  the  Conference  to 
allow  the  smaller  belligerent  Allies  more  than  two  dele- 
gates. Their  demand  was  curtly  rejected  by  the  French 
Premier,  who  informed  his  hearers  that  the  Conference 
was  the  creation  of  the  Great  Powers,  who  intended  to 
keep  the  direction  of  its  labors  in  their  own  hands.  He 
added  significantly  that  the  smaller  nations'  representa- 
tives would  probably  not  have  been  invited  at  all  if  the 

201 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

special  problem  of  the  League  of  Nations  had  not  been 
mooted.  Nor  should  it  be  forgotten,  he  added,  that  the 
five  Great  Powers  represented  no  less  than  twelve  million 
fighting-men.  ...  In  conclusion,  he  told  them  that  they 
had  better  get  on  with  their  work  in  lieu  of  wasting  pre- 
cious time  in  speechmaking.  These  words  produced  a 
profound  and  lasting  effect,  which,  however,  was  hardly 
the  kind  intended  by  the  French  statesman. 

"  Conf erential  Tsarism"  was  the  term  applied  to  this 
magisterial  method  by  one  of  the  offended  delegates. 
He  said  to  me  on  the  morrow:  "My  reply  to  M.  Clemen- 
ceau  was  ready,  but  fear  of  impairing  the  prestige  of  the 
Conference  prevented  me  from  uttering  it.  I  could  have 
emphasized  the  need  for  unanimity  in  the  presence  of 
vigilant  enemies,  ready  to  introduce  a  wedge  into  every 
fissure  of  the  edifice  we  are  constructing.  I  could  have 
pointed  out  that,  this  being  an  assembly  of  nations 
which  had  waged  war  conjointly,  there  is  no  sound  reason 
why  its  membership  should  be  diluted  with  states  which 
never  drew  the  sword  at  all.  I  might  have  asked  what 
has  become  of  the  doctrine  preached  when  victory  was 
still  undecided,  that  a  league  of  nations  must  repose 
upon  a  free  consent  of  all  sovereign  states.  And  above 
all  things  else  I  could  have  inquired  how  it  came  to  pass 
that  the  architect-in-chief  of  the  society  of  nations  which 
is  to  bestow  a  stable  peace  on  mankind  should  invoke 
the  argument  of  force,  of  militarism,  against  the  pacific 
peoples  who  voluntarily  made  the  supreme  sacrifice  for 
the  cause  of  humanity  and  now  only  ask  for  a  hearing. 
Twelve  million  fighting-men  is  an  argument  to  be  employed 
against  the  Teutons,  not  against  the  peace-loving,  law- 
abiding  peoples  of  Europe. 

"Premier  Clemenceau  seemed  to  lay  the  blame  for  the 
waste  of  time  on  our  shoulders,  but  the  truth  is  that  we 
were  never  admitted  to  the  deliberations  until  yesterday; 

202 


THE  LESSER   STATES 

although  two  and  one-half  months  have  elapsed  since  the 
armistice  was  concluded,  and  although  the  progress 
made  by  these  leading  statesmen  is  manifestly  limited, 
he  grudged  us  forty-five  minutes  to  give  vent  to  our  views 
and  wishes. 

"The  French  Tiger  was  admirable  when  crushing  the 
enemies  of  civilization  with  his  twelve  million  fighting- 
men;  but  gestures  and  actions  which  were  appropriate  to 
the  battlefield  become  sources  of  jarring  and  discord  when 
imported  into  a  concert  of  peoples." 

Much  bitterness  was  generated  by  those  high-handed 
tactics,  whereupon  certain  slight  concessions  were  made 
in  order  to  placate  the  offended  delegates;  but,  being  doled 
out  with  a  bad  grace,  they  failed  of  the  effect  intended. 
Belgium  received  three  delegates  instead  of  two,  and 
Jugoslavia  three;  but  Rumania,  whose  population  was 
estimated  at  fourteen  millions,  was  allowed  but  two.  This 
inexplicable  decision  caused  a  fresh  wound,  which  was 
kept  continuously  open  by  friction,  although  it  might 
readily  have  been  avoided.  Its  consequences  may  be 
traced  in  Rumania's  singular  relations  to  the  Supreme 
Council  before  and  after  the  fall  of  Kuhn  in  Hungary. 

But  even  those  drastic  methods  might  be  deemed  war- 
ranted if  the  policy  enforced  were,  in  truth,  conducive  to 
the  welfare  of  the  nations  on  whom  it  was  imposed.  But 
hastily  improvised  by  one  or  two  men,  who  had  no  claim 
to  superior  or  even  average  knowledge  of  the  problems 
involved,  and  who  were  constantly  falling  into  egregious 
and  costly  errors,  it  was  inevitable  that  their  intervention 
should  be  resented  as  arbitrary  and  mischievous  by  the 
leaders  of  the  interested  nations  whose  acquaintanceship 
with  those  questions  and  with  the  interdependent  issues 
was  extensive  and  precise.  This  resentment,  however, 
might  have  been  not,  indeed,  neutralized,  but  somewhat 
mitigated,  if  the  temper  and  spirit  in  which  the  Duumvir- 

203 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

ate  discharged  its  self-set  functions  had  been  free  from 
hauteur  and  softened  by  modesty.  But  the  magisterial 
wording  in  which  its  decisions  were  couched,  the  abrupt- 
ness with  which  they  were  notified,  and  the  threats  that 
accompanied  their  imposition  would  have  been  repellent 
even  were  the  authors  endowed  with  infallibility. 

One  of  the  delegates  who  unbosomed  himself  to  me  on 
the  subject  soon  after  the  Germans  had  signed  the 
Treaty  remarked:  "The  Big  Three  are  superlatively  un- 
sympathetic to  most  of  the  envoys  from  the  lesser  belliger- 
ent states.  And  it  would  be  a  wonder  if  it  were  other- 
wise, for  they  make  no  effort  to  hide  their  disdain  for  us. 
In  fact,  it  is  downright  contempt.  They  never  consult 
us.  When  we  approach  them  they  shove  us  aside  as 
importunate  intruders.  They  come  to  decisions  unknown 
to  us,  and  carry  them  out  in  secrecy,  as  though  we  were 
enemies  or  spies.  If  we  protest  or  remonstrate,  we  are 
imperialists  and  ungrateful. 

' '  Often  we  learn  only  from  the  newspapers  the  burdens 
or  the  restrictions  that  have  been  imposed  on  us." 

A  couple  of  days  previously  M.  Clemenceau,  in  an  un- 
official reply  to  a  question  put  by  the  Rumanian  delega- 
tion, directed  them  to  consult  the  financial  terms  of  the 
Treaty  with  Austria,  forgetting  that  the  delegates  of  the 
lesser  states  had  not  been  allowed  to  receive  or  read  those 
terms.  Although  communicated  to  the  Austrians,  they 
were  carefully  concealed  from  the  Rumanians,  whom  they 
also  concerned.  At  the  same  time,  the  Rumanian  govern- 
ment was  called  upon  to  take  and  announce  a  decision 
which  presupposed  acquaintanceship  with  those  condi- 
tions, whereupon  the  Rumanian  Premier  telegraphed  from 
Bucharest  to  Paris  to  have  them  sent.  But  his  locum  tenens 
did  not  possess  a  copy  and  had  no  right  to  demand  one.^ 
Incongruities  of  this  character  were  frequent. 

*  I  was  in  possession  of  a  complete  copy. 

204 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

One  statesman  in  Paris,  who  enjoys  a  world-wide 
reputation,  dissented  from  those  who  sided  with  the  lesser 
states.  He  looked  at  their  protests  and  tactics  from  an 
angle  of  vision  which  the  unbiased  historian,  however 
emphatically  he  may  dissent  from  it,  cannot  ignore.  He 
said:  "Ail  the  smaller  communities  are  greedy  and  in- 
satiable. If  the  chiefs  of  the  World  Powers  had  under- 
stood their  temper  and  ascertained  their  aspirations  in 
19 1 4,  much  that  has  passed  into  history  since  then  would 
never  have  taken  place.  During  the  war  these  miniature 
countries  were  courted,  flattered,  and  promised  the  sun 
and  the  moon,  earth  and  heaven,  and  all  the  glories  therein. 
And  now  that  these  promises  cannot  be  redeemed,  they 
are  wroth,  and  peevishly  threaten  the  great  states  with 
disobedience  and  revolt.  This,  it  is  true,  they  could  not 
do  if  the  latter  had  not  forfeited  their  authority  and 
prestige  by  allowing  their  internal  differences,  hesitations, 
contradictions,  and  repentances  to  become  manifest  to 
all.  To-day  it  is  common  knowledge  that  the  Great 
Powers  are  amenable  to  very  primitive  incentives  and 
deterrents.  If  in  the  beginning  they  had  been  united  and 
said  to  their  minor  brethren:  'These  are  your  frontiers. 
These  your  obligations,'  the  minor  brethren  would  have 
bowed  and  acquiesced  gratefully.  In  this  way  the 
boundary  problems  might  have  been  settled  to  the  satis- 
faction of  all,  for  each  new  or  enlarged  state  would  have 
been  treated  as  the  recipient  of  a  free  gift  from  the  World 
Powers.  But  the  plenipotentiaries  went  about  their  task 
in  a  different  and  unpractical  fashion.  They  began  by 
recognizing  the  new  communities,  and  then  they  gave 
them  representatives  at  the  Conference.  This  they  did 
on  the  ground  that  the  League  of  Nations  must  first  be 
founded,  and  that  all  well-behaved  belligerents  on  the 
Allied  side  have  a  right  to  be  consulted  upon  that.  And, 
finally,  instead  of  keeping  to  their  program  and  liquidating 

205 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

the  war,  they  mingled  the  issues  of  peace  with  the  clauses 
of  the  League  and  debated  them  simultaneously.  In 
these  debates  they  revealed  their  own  internal  differences, 
their  hesitancy,  and  the  weakness  of  their  will.  And  the 
lesser  states  have  taken  advantage  of  that.  The  general 
results  have  been  the  postponement  of  peace,  the  physical 
exhaustion  of  the  Central  Empires,  and  the  spread  of 
Bolshevism." 

It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  this  mixture  of  the 
general  and  the  particular  of  the  old  order  and  the  new 
was  objected  to  on  other  grounds.  The  Italians,  for 
example,  urged  that  it  changed  the  status  of  a  large 
number  of  their  adversaries  into  that  of  highly  privileged 
Allies.  During  the  war  they  were  enemies,  before  the 
peace  discussions  opened  they  had  obtained  forgiveness, 
after  which  they  entered  the  Conference  as  cherished 
friends.  The  Italians  had  waged  their  war  heroically 
against  the  Austrians,  who  inflicted  heavy  losses  on  them. 
Who  were  these  Austrians?  They  were  composed  of  the 
various  nationalities  which  made  up  the  Hapsburg 
monarchy,  and  in  especial  of  men  of  Slav  speech.  These 
soldiers,  with  notable  exceptions,  discharged  their  duty 
to  the  Austrian  Emperor  and  state  conscientiously,  ac- 
cording to  the  terms  of  their  oath.  Their  disposition 
toward  the  Italians  was  not  a  whit  less  hostile  than  was 
that  of  the  common  German  man  against  the  French  and 
the  English.  Why,  then,  argued  the  Italians,  accord 
them  privileges  over  the  ally  who  bore  the  brunt  of  the 
fight  against  them?  Why  even  treat  the  two  as  equals? 
It  may  be  replied  that  the  bulk  of  the  people  were  indif- 
ferent and  merely  carried  out  orders.  Well,  the  same 
holds  good  of  the  average  German,  yet  he  is  not  being 
spoiled  by  the  victorious  World  Powers.  But  the  Croats 
and  others  suddenly  became  the  favorite  children  of  the 
Conference,  while  the  Germans  and  Teuton-Austrians, 

206 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

who  in  the  meanwhile  had  accepted  and  fulfilled  President 
Wilson's  conditions  for  entry  into  the  fellowship  of  na- 
tions, were  not  only  punished  heavily — which  was  per- 
fectly just — but  also  disqualified  for  admission  into  the 
League,  which  was  inconsistent. 

The  root  of  all  the  incoherences  complained  of  lay  in 
the  circumstance  that  the  chiefs  of  the  Great  Powers 
had  no  program,  no  method;  Mr.  Wilson's  pristine  scheme 
would  have  enabled  him  to  treat  the  gallant  Serbs  and 
their  Croatian  brethren  as  he  desired.  But  he  had  failed 
to  maintain  it  against  opposition.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
traditional  method  of  the  balnace  of  power  would  have 
given  Italy  all  that  she  could  reasonably  ask  for,  but 
Mr.  Wilson  had  partially  destroyed  it.  Nothing  re- 
mained then  but  to  have  recourse  to  a  tertium  quid  which 
profoundly  dissatisfied  both  parties  and  imperiled  the 
peace  of  the  world  in  days  to  come.  And  even  this  make- 
shift the  eminent  plenipotentiaries  were  unable  to  contrive 
single-handed.  Their  notion  of  getting  the  work  done 
was  to  transfer  it  to  missions,  commissions,  and  sub- 
commissions,  and  then  to  take  action  which,  as  often  as 
not,  ran  counter  to  the  recommendations  of  these  selected 
agents.  Oddly  enough,  none  of  these  bodies  received 
adequate  directions.  To  take  a  concrete  example:  a 
central  commission  was  appointed  to  deal  with  the  Polish 
frontier  problems,  a  second  commission  under  M.  Jules 
Cambon  had  to  study  the  report  on  the  Polish  Delimita- 
1  tion  question,  but  although  often  consulted,  it  was  seldom 
listened  to.  Then  there  was  a  third  commission,  which 
also  did  excellent  work  to  very  little  purpose.  Now  all 
the  questions  which  formed  the  subjects  of  their  in- 
quiries might  be  approached  from  various  sides.  There 
were  historical  frontiers,  ethnographical  frontiers,  political 
and  strategical  and  linguistic  frontiers.  And  this  does  not 
exhaust  the  list.     Among  all  these,  then,  the  commis- 

207 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

sioners  had  to  choose  their  field  of  investigation  as  the 
spirit  moved  them,  without  any  guidance  from  the 
Supreme  Council,  which  presumably  did  not  know  what 
it  wanted. 

As  an  example  of  the  Council's  unmethodical  procedure, 
and  of  its  slipshod  way  of  taclding  important  work,  the 
following  brief  sketch  of  a  discussion  which  was  intended 
to  be  decisive  and  final,  but  ended  in  mere  waste  of  time, 
may  be  worth  recording.  The  topic  mooted  was  dis- 
armament. The  Anglo-Saxon  plenipotentiaries,  feeling 
that  they  owed  it  to  their  doctrines  and  their  peoples  to 
ease  the  military  burdens  of  the  latter  and  lessen  tempta- 
tions to  acts  of  violence,  favored  a  measure  by  which 
armaments  should  be  reduced  forthwith.  The  Italian 
delegates  had  put  forward  the  thesis,  which  was  finally  ac- 
cepted, that  if  Austria,  for  instance,  was  to  be  forbidden 
to  keep  more  than  a  certain  number  of  troops  under  arms, 
the  prohibition  should  be  extended  to  all  the  states  of 
which  Austria  had  been  composed,  and  that  in  all  these 
cases  the  ratio  between  the  population  and  the  army 
should  be  identical.  Accordingly,  the  spokesmen  of  the 
various  countries  interested  were  summoned  to  take 
cognizance  of  the  decision  and  intimate  their  readiness 
to  conform  to  it. 

M.  Paderewski  listened  respectfully  to  the  decree,  and 
then  remarked:  "According  to  the  accounts  received 
from  the  French  military  authorities,  Germany  still  has 
three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  soldiers  in  Silesia." 
"No,"  corrected  M.  Clemenceau,  "only  three  hundred 
thousand."  "I  accept  the  correction,"  replied  the  Polish 
Premier.  "The  difference,  however,  is  of  no  importance 
to  my  contention,  which  is  that  according  to  the  symptoms 
reported  we  Poles  may  have  to  fight  the  Germans  and  to 
wage  the  conflict  single-handed.  As  you  know,  we  have 
other  military  work  on  hand.     I  need  only  mention  our 

208 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

strife  with  the  Bolsheviki.  If  we  are  deprived  of  effective 
means  of  self-defense,  on  the  one  hand,  and  told  to  expect 
no  help  from  the  Allies,  on  the  other  hand,  the  consequence 
will  be  what  every  intelligent  observer  foresees.  Now 
three  hundred  thousand  Germans  is  no  trifle  to  cope  with. 
If  we  confront  them  with  an  inadequate  force  and  are 
beaten,  what  then?"  "Undoubtedly,"  exclaimed  M. 
Clemenceau,  "if  the  Germans  were  victorious  in  the  east 
of  Europe  the  Allies  would  have  lost  the  war.  And  that 
is  a  perspective  not  to  be  faced." 

M.  Bratiano  spoke  next.  "We  too,"  he  said,  "have  to 
fight  the  Bolsheviki  on  more  than  one  front.  This  strug- 
gle is  one  of  life  and  death  to  us.  But  it  concerns,  if  only 
in  a  lesser  degree,  all  Europe,  and  we  are  rendering  ser- 
vices to  the  Great  Powers  by  the  sacrifices  we  thus  offer 
up.  Is  it  desirable,  is  it  politic,  to  limit  our  forces  without 
reference  to  these  redoubtable  tasks  which  await  them? 
Is  it  not  incumbent  on  the  Powers  to  allow  these  states 
to  grow  to  the  dimensions  required  for  the  discharge  of 
their  functions?"  "What  you  advance  is  true  enough 
for  the  moment,"  objected  M.  Clemenceau;  "but  you 
forget  that  our  limitations  are  not  to  be  applied  at  once. 
We  fix  a  term  after  the  expiry  of  which  the  strength  of  the 
armies  will  be  reduced.  We  have  taken  all  the  circum- 
stances into  account."  "Are  you  prepared  to  affirm," 
queried  the  Rumanian  Minister,  "that  you  can  estimate 
the  time  with  sufficient  precision  to  warrant  our  risking 
the  existence  of  our  country  on  your  forecast?"  "The 
danger  will  have  completely  disappeared,"  insisted  the 
French  Premier,  "by  January,  192 1."  "I  am  truly 
glad  to  have  this  assurance,"  answered  M.  Bratiano, 
"for  I  doubt  not  that  you  are  quite  certain  of  what  you 
advance,  else  you  would  not  stake  the  fate  of  your  eastern 
allies  on  its  correctness.  But  as  we  who  have  not  been 
told  the  grounds  on  which  you  base  this  calculation  are 

209 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

asked  to  manifest  our  faith  in  it  by  incurring  the  heaviest 
conceivable  risks,  would  it  be  too  much  to  suggest  that 
the  Great  Powers  should  show  their  confidence  in  their 
own  forecast  by  guaranteeing  that  if  by  the  insurgence 
of  unexpected  events  they  proved  to  be  mistaken  and 
Rumania  were  attacked,  they  would  give  us  prompt  and 
adequate  military  assistance?"  To  this  appeal  there 
was  no  affirmative  response;  whereupon  M.  Bratiano 
concluded:  "The  limitation  of  armaments  is  highly 
desirable.  No  people  is  more  eager  for  it  than  ours. 
But  it  has  one  limitation  which  must,  I  venture  to  think, 
be  respected.  So  long  as  you  have  a  restive  or  dubious 
neighbor,  whose  military  forces  are  subjected  neither  to 
limitation  nor  control,  you  cannot  divest  yourself  of  your 
own  means  of  self-defense.  Th  at  is  our  view  of  the  matter. ' ' 
Months  later  the  same  difficulty  cropped  up  anev/,  this 
time  in  a  concrete  form,  and  was  dealt  with  by  the 
Supreme  Council  in  its  characteristic  manner.  Toward 
the  end  of  August  Rumania's  doings  in  Hungary  and  her 
alleged  designs  on  the  Banat  alarmed  and  angered  the 
delegates,  whose  authority  was  being  flouted  with  impun- 
ity; and  by  way  of  summarily  terminating  the  scandal 
and  preventing  unpleasant  surprises  M.  Clemenceau 
proposed  that  all  further  consignments  of  arms  to 
Rumania  should  cease.  Thereupon  Italy's  chief  repre- 
sentative, Signor  Tittoni,  offered  an  amendment.  He 
deprecated,  he  said,  any  measure  leveled  specially  against 
Rumania,  all  the  more  that  there  existed  already  an 
enactment  of  the  old  Council  of  Four  limiting  the  arma- 
ments of  all  the  lesser  states.  The  Military  Council  of 
Versailles,  having  been  charged  with  the  study  of  this 
matter,  had  reached  the  conclusion  that  the  Great  Powers 
should  not  supply  any  of  the  governments  with  war  ma- 
terial. Signor  Tittoni  was  of  the  opinion,  therefore,  that 
those  conclusions  should  now  be  enforced. 

210 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

The  Council  thereupon  agreed  with  the  ItaHan  delegate, 
and  passed  a  resolution  to  supply  none  of  the  lesser 
countries  with  war  material.  And  a  few  minutes  later 
it  passed  another  resolution  authorizing  Germany  to 
cede  part  of  her  munitions  and  war  material  to  Czecho- 
slovakia and  some  more  to  General  Yudcnitch!  * 

When  the  commissions  to  which  all  the  complex 
problems  had  to  be  referred  were  being  first  created,^ 
the  lesser  states  were  allowed  only  five  representatives 
on  the  Financial  and  Economic  commissions,  and  were 
bidden  to  elect  them.  The  nineteen  delegates  of  these 
states  protested  on  the  ground  that  this  arrangement 
would  not  give  them  sufficient  weight  in  the  councils  by 
which  their  interests  would  be  discussed.  These  mal- 
contents were  headed  by  Senhor  Epistacio  Pessoa,  the 
President-elect  of  the  United  States  of  Brazil.  The 
Polish  delegate,  M.  Dmowski,  addressing  the  meeting, 
suggested  that  they  should  not  proceed  to  an  election, 
the  results  of  which  might  stand  in  no  relation  to  the 
interests  which  the  states  represented  had  in  matters  of 
European  finance,  but  that  they  should  ask  the  Great 
Powers  to  appoint  the  delegates.  To  this  the  President- 
elect of  Brazil  demurred,  taking  the  ground  that  it  would 
be  undignified  for  the  lesser  states  to  submit  to  have  their 
spokesman  nominated  by  the  greater.  Thereupon  they 
elected  five  delegates,  all  of  them  from  South  American 
countries,  to  deal  with  European  finance,  leaving  the 
Europeans  to  choose  five  from  among  themselves.  This 
would  have  given  ten  in  all  to  the  communities  whose 
interests  were  described  as  limited,  and  was  an  affront 
to  the  Great  Powers. 

This  comedy  was  severely  judged  and  its  authors 
reprimanded  by  the  heads  of  the  Conference,  who,  while 

*  Cf.  Corriere  delta  Sera,  August  24,  1919. 
^  In  February. 
15  211 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

quashing  the  elections,  relented  to  the  extent  of  promising 
that  extra  delegates  might  be  appointed  for  the  lesser 
nations  later  on.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  number  of 
commissions  was  of  no  real  consequence,  because  on  all 
momentous  issues  their  findings,  unless  they  harmonized 
with  the  decisions  of  the  chief  plenipotentiaries,  were 
simply  ignored. 

The  curious  attitude  of  the  Supreme  Council  toward 
Rumania  may  be  contemplated  from  various  angles  of 
vision.  But  the  safest  coign  of  vantage  from  which  to 
look  at  it  is  that  formed  by  the  facts. 

Rumania's  grievances  were  many,  and  they  began  at 
the  opening  of  the  Conference,  when  she  was  refused  more 
than  two  delegates  as  against  the  five  attributed  to  each 
of  the  Great  Powers  and  three  each  for  Serbia  and  Bel- 
gium, whose  populations  are  numerically  inferior  to  hers. 
Then  her  treaty  with  Great  Britain,  France,  and  Russia, 
on  the  strength  of  which  she  entered  the  war,  was  upset 
by  its  more  powerful  signatories  as  soon  as  the  frontier 
question  was  mooted  at  the  Conference.  Further,  the 
existence  of  the  Rumanian  delegation  was  generally 
ignored  by  the  Supreme  Council.  Thus,  when  the  treaty 
with  Germany  was  presented  to  Count  von  Brockdorff- 
Rantzau,  a  mere  journalist  ^  at  the  Conference  possessed 
a  complete  copy,  whereas  the  Rumanian  delegation, 
headed  by  the  Prime  Minister  Bratiano,  had  cognizance 
only  of  an  incomplete  summary.  When  the  fragmentary 
treaty  was  drafted  for  Austria,  the  Rumanian  delegation 
saw  the  text  only  on  the  evening  before  the  presentation, 
and,  noticing  inacceptable  clauses,  formulated  reserva- 
tions. These  reservations  were  apparently  acquiesced  in 
by  the  members  of  the  Supreme  Council.  That,  at  any 
rate,  was  the  impression  of  MM.   Bratiano  and   Misu. 

iCf.  Chapter.  "Censorship  and  Secrecy."  The  writer  of  these  pages 
was  the  journaUst. 

212 


THE   LESSER  STATES 

But  on  the  following  day,  catching  a  glimpse  of  the  draft, 
they  discovered  that  the  obnoxious  provisions  had  been 
left  intact.  Then  they  lodged  their  reserves  in  writing, 
but  to  no  purpose.  One  of  the  obligations  imposed  on 
Rumania  by  the  Powers  was  a  promise  to  accept  in  ad- 
vance any  and  every  measure  that  the  Supreme  Council 
might  frame  for  the  protection  of  minorities  in  the  coun- 
try, and  for  further  restricting  the  sovereignty  of  the  state 
in  matters  connected  with  the  transit  of  Allied  goods. 
And,  lastly,  the  Rumanians  complained  that  the  action  of 
the  Supreme  Council  was  creating  a  dangerous  ferment  in 
the  Dobrudja,  and  even  in  Transylvania,  where  the  Saxon 
minority,  which  had  willingly  accepted  Rumanian  sway, 
was  beginning  to  agitate  against  it.  In  Bessarabia  the 
non-Rumanian  elements  of  the  population  were  fiercely 
opposing  the  Rumanians  and  invoking  the  support  of  the 
Peace  Conference.  The  cardinal  fact  which,  in  the  judg- 
ment of  the  Rumanians,  dominated  the  situation  was  the 
quasi  ultimatum  presented  to  them  in  the  spring,  when 
they  were  summoned  unofficially  and  privately  to  grant 
industrial  concessions  to  a  pushing  body  of  financiers,  or 
else  to  abide  by  the  consequences,  one  of  which,  they  were 
told,  would  be  the  loss  of  America's  active  assistance. 
They  had  elected  to  incur  the  threatened  penalty  after 
having  carefully  weighed  the  advantages  and  disadvan- 
tages of  laying  the  matter  before  President  Wilson  him- 
self, and  inquiring  officially  whether  the  action  in  question 
was — as  they  felt  sure  it  must  be — in  contradiction  with 
the  President's  east  European  policy.  For  it  would  be 
sad  to  think  that  abundant  petroleum  might  have  washed 
away  many  of  the  tribulations  which  the  Rumanians  had 
afterward  to  endure,  and  that  loans  accepted  on  onerous 
conditions  would,  as  w^as  hinted,  have  softened  the  hearts 
of  those  who  had  it  in  their  power  to  render  the  existence 
of  the  nation  sour  or  sweet. ^     "Look  out,"  exclaimed  a 

213 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

Rumanian  to  me.  "You  will  see  that  we  shall  be  spurned 
as  Laodiceans,  or  worse,  before  the  Conference  is  over." 
Rumania's  external  situation  was  even  more  perilous  than 
her  domestic  plight.  Situated  between  Russia  and  Hun- 
gary, she  came  more  and  more  to  resemble  the  iron  be- 
tween the  hammer  and  the  anvil.  A  well-combined  move 
of  the  two  anarchist  states  might  have  pulverized  her. 
Alive  to  the  danger,  her  spokesmen  in  Paris  were  anxious 
to  guard  against  it,  but  the  only  hope  they  had  at  the 
moment  was  centered  in  the  Great  Powers,  whose  delegates 
at  the  Conference  were  discharging  the  functions  which 
the  League  of  Nations  would  be  called  on  to  fulfil  when- 
ever it  became  a  real  institution.  And  their  past  experi- 
ence of  the  Great  Powers'  mode  of  action  was  not  calcu- 
lated to  command  their  confidence.  It  was  the  Great 
Powers  which,  for  their  own  behoof  and  without  the 
slightest  consideration  for  the  interests  of  Rumania,  had 
constrained  that  country  to  declare  war  against  the  Cen- 
tral Empires,^  and  had  made  promises  of  effective  support 
in  the  shape  of  Russian  troops,  war  material  of  every  kind, 
officers,  and  heavy  artillery.  But  neither  the  promises  of 
help  nor  the  assurances  that  Germany's  army  of  invasion 
would  be  immobilized  were  redeemed,  and  so  far  as  one 
can  now  judge  they  ought  never  to  have  been  made.  For 
what  actually  came  to  pass — the  invasion  of  the  country 
by  first-class  German  armies  under  Mackensen — might 
easily  have  been  foreseen,  and  was  actually  foretold.^ 
The  entire  country  was  put  to  sack,  and  everything  of 
value  that  could  be  removed  was  carried  off  to  Hungary, 
Germany,  or  Austria.  The  Allies  lavished  their  verbal 
sympathies  on  the  immolated  nation,  but  did  little  else 


1  Le  Temps,  July  8,  1919.  "^  kt  the  close  of  August,  191 6. 

3 1  was  one  of  those  who  at  the  time  maintained  that  even  in  the  Allies' 
interests  Rumania  ought  not  to  enter  the  war  at  that  conjuncture,  and  an- 
ticipation of  that  invasion  was  one  of  the  reasons  I  adduced. 

214 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

to  succor  it,  and  want  and  misery  and  disease  played  havoc 
v/ith  the  people. 

After  the  armistice  things  became  worse  instead  of 
better.  The  Hungarians  were  permitted  to  violate  the 
conditions  and  keep  a  powerful  army  out  of  all  proportion 
to  the  area  which  they  were  destined  to  retain,  and  as  the 
Allies  disposed  of  no  countering  force  in  eastern  Europe, 
their  commands  were  scoffed  at  by  the  Budapest  Cabinet. 
In  the  spring  of  191 9  the  BolshevistG  of  Hungary  waxed 
militant  and  threatened  the  peace  of  Rumania,  whose 
statesmen  respectfully  sued  for  permission  to  occupy  cer- 
tain commanding  positions  which  would  have  enabled 
their  armies  to  protect  the  land  from  invasion.  But  the 
Duumviri  in  Paris  negatived  the  request.  They  fancied 
that  they  understood  the  situation  better  than  the  people 
on  the  spot.  Thereupon  the  Bolshevists,  ever  ready  for 
an  opportunity,  seized  upon  the  opening  afforded  them  by 
the  Supreme  Council,  attacked  the  Rumanians,  and  in- 
vaded their  territory.  Nothing  abashed,  the  two  Anglo- 
Saxon  statesmen  comforted  M.  Bratiano  and  his  colleagues 
with  the  expression  of  their  regret  and  the  promise  that 
tranquillity  would  not  again  be  disturbed.  The  Supreme 
Council  would  see  to  that.  But  this  promise,  like  those 
that  preceded  it,  was  broken. 

The  Rumanians  went  so  far  as  to  believe  that  the 
Supreme  Council  either  had  Bolshevist  leanings  or  under- 
went secret  influences — perhaps  unwittingly — 'the  nature 
of  which  it  was  not  easy  to  ascertain.  In  support  of  these 
theories  they  urged  that  when  the  Rumanians  were  on 
the  very  point  of  annihilating  the  Red  troops  of  Kuhn, 
it  was  the  Supreme  Council  which  interposed  its  authority 
to  save  them,  and  did  save  them  effectually,  when  noth- 
ing else  could  have  done  it.  That  Kuhn  was  on  the  point 
of  collapsing  was  a  matter  of  common  knowledge.  A 
radio-telegram   flashed   from    Budapest   by   one   of   his 

21S 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

lieutenants  contained  this  significant  avowal:  "He 
[Kuhn]  has  announced  that  the  Hungarian  forces  are  in 
flight.  The  troops  which  occupied  a  good  position  at  the 
bridgehead  of  Gomi  have  abandoned  it,  carrying  with 
them  the  men  who  were  doing  their  duty.  In  Budapest 
preparations  are  going  forward  for  equipping  fifteen 
workmen's  battalions."  In  other  words,  the  downfall 
of  Bolshevism  had  begun.  The  Rumanians  were  on  the 
point  of  achieving  it.  Their  troops  on  the  bank  of  the 
river  Tisza  ^  were  preparing  to  march  on  Budapest. 
And  it  was  at  that  critical  moment  that  the  world-arbiters 
at  the  Conference  who  had  anathematized  the  Bolshevists 
as  the  curse  of  civilization  interposed  their  authority 
and  called  a  halt.  If  they  had  solid  grounds  for  interven- 
ing they  were  not  avowed.  M.  Clemenceau  sent  for 
M.  Bratiano  and  vetoed  the  march  in  peremptory  terms 
which  did  scant  justice  to  the  services  rendered  and  the 
sacrifices  made  by  the  Rumanian  state.  Secret  arrange- 
ments, it  was  whispered,  had  been  come  to  between  agents 
of  the  Powers  and  Kuhn.  At  the  time  nobody  quite 
understood  the  motive  of  the  sudden  change  of  disposition 
evinced  by  the  Allies  toward  the  Magyar  Bolshevists. 
For  it  was  assumed  that  they  still  regarded  the  Bolshevist 
leaders  as  outlaws.  One  explanation  was  that  they  ob- 
jected to  allow  the  Rumanian  army  alone  to  occupy  the 
Hungarian  capital.  But  that  would  not  account  for  their 
neglect  to  despatch  an  Inter-Allied  contingent  to  restore 
order  in  the  city  and  country.  For  they  remained  abso- 
lutely inactive  while  Kuhn's  supporters  were  rallying 
and  consolidating  their  scattered  and  demoralized  forces, 
and  they  kept  the  Rumanians  from  balking  the  Bolshevist 
work  of  preparing  another  attack.  As  one  of  their 
French  critics  ^  remarked,  they  dealt  exclusively  in  nega- 

^  Also  known  by  the  German  name  of  Theiss. 
2  Cf.  Le,  Temps,  July  28,  1919. 

216 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

tives — some  of  them  pernicious  enough,  whereas  a  posi- 
tive poHcy  was  imperatively  called  for.  To  reconstruct  a 
nation,  not  to  say  a  ruined  world,  a  series  of  contradictory 
vetoes  is  hardly  sufficient.  But  another  explanation  of 
their  attitude  was  offered  which  gained  widespread  ac- 
ceptance.    It  will  be  unfolded  presently. 

The  dispersed  Bolshevist  army,  thus  shielded,  soon  re- 
covered its  nerve,  and,  feeling  secure  on  the  Rumanian 
front,  where  the  Allies  held  the  invading  troops  immobil- 
ized, attacked  the  Slovaks  and  overran  their  country. 
For  Bolshevism  is  by  nature  proselytizing.  The  Prague 
Cabinet  was  dismayed.  The  new-bom  Czechoslovak 
state  was  shaken.  A  catastrophe  might,  as  it  seemed, 
ensue  at  any  moment.  Rumania's  troops  were  on  the 
watch  for  the  signal  to  resume  their  march,  but  it  came 
not.  The  Czechoslovaks  were  soliciting  it  prayerfully. 
But  the  weak-kneed  plenipotentiaries  in  Paris  were 
minded  to  fight,  if  at  all,  with  weapons  taken  from  a  dif- 
ferent arsenal.  In  lieu  of  ordering  the  Rumanian  troops 
to  march  on  Budapest,  they  addressed  themselves  to  the 
Bolshevist  leader,  Kuhn,  summoned  him  to  evacuate  the 
Slovak  country,  and  volunteered  the  promise  that  they 
would  compel  the  Rumanians  to  withdraw.  This  amaz- 
ing line  of  action  was  decided  on  by  the  secret  Council  of 
Three  without  the  assent  or  foreknowledge  of  the  nation 
to  whose  interests  it  ran  counter  and  the  head  of  whose 
government  was  rubbing  shoulders  with  the  plenipoten- 
tiaries every  day.  But  M.  Bratiano's  existence  and  that 
of  his  fellow-delegate  was  systematically  ignored.  It  is 
not  easy  to  fathom  the  motives  that  inspired  this  super- 
cilious treatment  of  the  spokesman  of  a  nation  which  was 
sacrificing  its  sons  in  the  service  of  the  Allies  as  well  as 
its  own.  Personal  antipathy,  however  real,  cannot  be 
assumed  without  convincing  grounds  to  have  been  the 
mainspring. 

217 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

But  there  was  worse  than  the  contemptuous  treatment 
of  a  colleague  who  was  also  the  chief  Minister  of  a 
friendly  state.  If  an  order  was  to  be  given  to  the  Ru- 
manian government  to  recall  its  forces  from  the  front 
which  they  occupied,  elementary  courtesy  and  political 
tact  as  well  as  plain  common  sense  would  have  suggested 
its  being  communicated,  in  the  first  instance,  to  the 
chief  of  that  government — who  was  then  resident  in 
Paris — as  head  of  his  country's  delegation  to  the  Con- 
ference. But  that  was  not  the  course  taken.  The  states- 
men of  the  Secret  Council  had  recourse  to  the  radio,  and, 
without  consulting  M.  Bratiano,  despatched  a  message 
"to  the  government  in  Bucharest"  enjoining  on  it  the 
withdrawal  of  the  Rumanian  army.  For  they  were 
minded  scrupulously  to  redeem  their  promise  to  the  Bol- 
shevists. One  need  not  be  a  diplomatist  to  realize  the 
amazement  of  "the  Rumanian  government"  on  receiving 
this  abrupt  behest.  The  feelings  of  the  Premier, 
when  informed  of  these  underhand  doings,  can  readily 
be  imagined.  And  it  is  no  secret  that  the  temper  of  a 
large  section  of  the  Rumanian  people  was  attuned  by  these 
petty  freaks  to  sentiments  which  boded  no  good  to  the 
cause  for  which  the  Allies  professed  to  be  working.  In 
September  M.  Bratiano  was  reported  as  having  stig- 
matized the  policy  adopted  by  the  Conference  toward 
Rumania  as  being  of  a  "mahcious  and  dangerous 
character."  ^ 

The  frontier  to  which  the  troops  were  ordered  to  with- 
draw had,  as  we  saw,  just  been  assigned  to  Rumania  ^ 
without  the  assent  of  her  government,  and  with  a  degree 
of  secrecy  and  arbitrariness  that  gave  deep  offense,  not 
only  to  her  official  representatives,  but  also  to  those 
parliamentarians  and  politicians  who  from  genuine  at- 

1  Cf.  The  Daily  Mail  (Paris  edition),  September  5,  1919. 
*  On  June  13,  1919. 

218 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

tachment  or  for  peace'  sake  were  willing  to  go  hand  in 
hand  with  the  Entente.  "If  one  may  classify  the  tree 
by  its  fruits,"  exclaimed  a  Rumanian  statesman  in  my 
hearing,  "the  great  Three  are  unconscious  Bolshevists. 
They  are  undermining  respect  for  authority,  tradition, 
plain,  straightforward  dealing,  and,  in  the  case  of  Ru- 
mania, are  behaving  as  though  their  staple  aim  were  to 
detach  our  nation  from  France  and  the  Entente.  And 
this  aim  is  not  unattainable.  The  Rumanian  people 
were  heart  and  soul  with  the  French,  but  the  bonds  which 
were  strong  a  short  while  ago  are  being  weakened  among 
an  influential  section  of  the  people,  to  the  regret  of  all 
Rumanian  patriots." 

The  answer  given  by  the  "Rumanian  government  in 
Bucharest"  to  the  peremptory  order  of  the  Secret  Council 
was  a  reasoned  refusal  to  comply.  Rumania,  taught  by 
terrible  experience,  declined  to  be  led  once  more  into 
deadly  peril  against  her  own  better  judgment.  Her 
statesmen,  more  intimately  acquaiiited  with  the  Hun- 
garians than  were  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  Mr.  Wilson,  and  M. 
Clemenceau,  required  guaranties  which  could  be  supplied 
only  by  armed  forces — Rumanian  or  Allied.  Unless  and 
until  Hungary  received  a  government  chosen  by  the 
free  will  of  the  people  and  capable  of  offering  guaranties 
of  good  conduct,  the  troops  must  remain  where  they  were. 
For  the  line  which  they  occupied  at  the  moment  could  be 
defended  with  four  divisions,  whereas  the  new  one  could 
not  be  held  by  less  than  seven  or  eight.  The  Council 
was  therefore  about  to  commit  another  fateful  mistake, 
the  consequences  of  which  it  was  certain  to  shift  to  the 
shoulders  of  the  pliant  people.  It  was  then  that  Rumania's 
leaders  kicked  against  the  pricks. 

To  return  to  the  dispute  between  Bucharest  and  Paris : 
the  Rumanian  government  would  have  been  willing  to 
conform  to  the  desire  of  the  Supreme  Council  and  with- 

219 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

draw  its  troops  if  the  Supreme  Council  would  only  make 
good  its  assurance  and  guarantee  Rumania  effectually 
from  future  attacks  by  the  Hungarians.  The  proviso 
was  reasonable,  and  as  a  measure  of  self-defense  impera- 
tive. The  safeguard  asked  for  was  a  contingent  of  Allied 
force.  But  the  two  supreme  councilors  in  Paris  dealt 
only  in  counters.  All  they  had  to  offer  to  M.  Bratiano 
were  verbal  exhortations  before  the  combat  and  lip- 
sympathy  after  defeat,  and  these  the  Premier  rejected. 
But  here,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Poles,  the  representatives 
of  the  "Allied  and  Associated"  Powers  insisted.  They 
were  profuse  of  promises,  exhortations,  and  entreaties 
before  passing  to  threats — ^of  guaranties  they  said  nothing 
— but  the  Rumanian  Premier,  turning  a  deaf  ear  to 
cajolery  and  intimidation,  remained  inflexible.  For  he 
was  convinced  that  their  advice  was  often  vitiated  by 
gross  ignorance  and  not  always  inspired  by  disinterested- 
ness, while  the  orders  they  issued  were  hardly  more  than 
the  velleities  of  well-meaning  gropers  in  the  dark  who 
lacked  the  means  of  executing  them. 

The  eminent  plenipotentiaries,  thus  set  at  naught  by  a 
little  state,  ruminated  on  the  embarrassing  situation. 
In  all  such  cases  their  practice  had  been  to  resign  them- 
selves to  circumstances  if  they  proved  unable  to  bend 
circumstances  to  their  schemes.  It  was  thus  that  Presi- 
dent Wilson  had  behaved  when  British  statesmen  declined 
even  to  hear  him  on  the  subject  of  the  freedom  of  the 
seas,  when  M.  Clemenceau  refused  to  accept  a  peace 
that  denied  the  Saar  Valley  and  a  pledge  of  military 
assistance  to  France,  and  when  Japan  insisted  on  the 
retrocession  of  Shantung.  Toward  Italy  an  attitude  of 
firmness  had  been  assumed,  because  owing  to  her  economic 
dependence  on  Britain  and  the  United  States  she  could 
not  indulge  in  the  luxury  of  nonconformity.  Hence  the 
plenipotentiaries,  and  in  particular  Mr.  Wilson,  asserted 

220 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

their  will  inexorably  and  were  painfully  surprised  that 
one  of  the  lesser  states  had  the  audacity  to  defy  it. 

The  circumstance  that  after  their  triumph  over  Italy 
the  world's  trustees  were  thus  publicly  flouted  by  a  little 
stale  of  eastern  Europe  was  gall  and  wormwood  to  them. 
It  was  also  a  menace  to  the  cause  with  which  they  were 
identified.  None  the  less,  they  accepted  the  inevitable 
for  the  moment,  pitched  their  voices  in  a  lower  key,  and 
decided  to  approve  the  Rumanian  thesis  that  Neo-Bol- 
shevism  in  Hungary  must  be  no  longer  bolstered  up,* 
but  be  squashed  vicariously.  They  accordingly  invited 
the  repiesentatives  of  the  three  little  countries  on  which 
the  honor  of  waging  these  humanitarian  wars  in  the 
anarchist  east  of  Europe  was  to  be  conferred,  and  sounded 
them  as  to  their  willingness  to  put  their  soldiers  in  the 
field,  and  how  many  as  to  the  numbers  available.  M. 
Bratiano  offered  eight  divisions.  The  Czechoslovaks  did 
not  relish  the  project,  but  after  some  delay  and  fencing 
around  agreed  to  farnish  a  contingent,  whereas  the  Jugo- 
slavs met  the  demand  with  a  plain  negative,  which  was 
afterward  changed  to  acquiescence  when  the  Council 
promised  to  keep  the  Italians  from  attacking  them.  As 
things  turned  out,  none  but  the  Rumanians  actually 
fought  the  Hungarian  Reds.  Meanwhile  the  members 
of  the  American,  British,  and  Italian  missions  in  Hungary 
endeavored  to  reach  a  friendly  agreement  with  the 
criminal  gang  in  Budapest. 

The  plan  of  campaign  decided  on  had  Marshal  Foch 
for  its  author.  It  was,  therefore,  business-like.  He  de- 
manded a  quarter  of  a  million  men,^  to  which  it  was 
decided  that  Rumania  should  contribute  120,000,  Jugo- 
slavia 50,000,  and  Czechoslovakia  as  many  as  she  could 


'  On  July  II,  19 19,  some  daj's  later,  the  decision  was  suspended,  owing  to 
the  opinion  of  General  Bliss,  who  disagreed  with  Foch. 
-  On  July  17,  19x9. 

221 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

conveniently  aftord.  But  the  day  before  the  preparations 
were  to  have  begun, ^  Beta  Kuhn  flung  his  troops^  against 
the  Rumanians  with  initial  success,  drove  them  across  the 
Tisza  with  considerable  loss,  took  up  commanding  posi- 
tions, and  struck  dismay  into  the  members  of  the  Su- 
preme Council.  The  Semitic  Dictator,  with  grim  humor, 
explained  to  the  crestfallen  lawgivers,  who  were  once 
more  at  fault,  that  a  wanton  breach  of  the  peace  was  alien 
to  his  thoughts;  that,  on  the  contrary,  his  motive  for 
action  deserved  high  praise — it  was  to  compel  the  rebel- 
lious Rumanians  to  obey  the  behest  of  the  Conference 
and  withdraw  to  their  frontiers.  The  plenipotentiaries 
bore  this  gibe  with  dignity,  and  decided  to  have  recourse 
once  more  to  their  favorite,  and,  indeed,  only  method — 
the  despatch  of  exhortative  telegrams.  Of  more  effica- 
cious means  they  were  destitute.  This  time  their  message, 
which  lacked  a  definite  address,  was  presumably  intended 
for  the  anti-Bolshevist  population  of  Hungary,  whom  it 
indirectly  urged  to  overthrow  the  Kuhn  Cabinet  and 
receive  the  promised  reward — ^namely,  the  privilege  of  en- 
tering into  formal  relations  with  the  Entente  and  sign- 
ing the  death-warrant  of  the  Magyar  state.  It  is  not 
easy  to  see  how  this  solution  alone  could  have  enabled  the 
Supreme  Council  to  establish  normal  conditions  and  tran- 
quillity in  the  land.  But  the  Duumvirate  seemed  utterly 
incapable  of  devising  a  coherent  policy  for  central  or 
eastern  Europe.  Even  when  Hungary  had  a  government 
friendly  to  the  Entente  they  never  obtained  any  advantage 
from  it.  They  had  had  no  use  for  Count  Karolyi.  They 
had  allowed  things  to  slip  and  slide,  and  permitted — nay, 
helped — Bolshevism  to  thrive,  although  they  had  brand- 
marked  it  as  a  virulent  epidemic  to  be  drastically  stamped 
out.     Temper,  educa.tion,  and  training  disqualified  them 

^  On  July  20th. 

^  Estimated  at  85,000. 

222 


THE   LESSER  STATES 

for  seizing  oppoitunity  and  pressing  the  levers  that  stood 
ready  to  tlieir  hand. 

In  consequence  of  the  vacillation  of  the  two  chiefs,  who 
seldom  stood  firm  in  the  face  of  difficulties,  the  members 
of  the  predatory  gang  which  concealed  its  alien  origin 
under  Magyar  nationality  and  its  criminal  propensities  * 
under  a  political  mask  had  been  enabled  to  go  on  playing 
an  odious  comedy,  to  the  disgust  of  sensible  people  and 
the  detriment  of  the  new  and  enlarged  states  of  Europe. 
For  the  cost  of  the  Supreme  Council's  weakness  had  to 
be  paid  in  blood  and  substance,  little  though  the  two  dele- 
gates appeared  to  realize  this.  The  extent  to  which  the 
ruinous  process  was  carried  out  would  be  incredible  were 
it  not  established  by  historic  facts  and  documents. 

The  permanent  agents  of  the  Powers  in  Hungary, ^  pre- 
ferring conciliation  to  force,  now  exhorted  the  Hunga- 
rians to  rid  themselves  of  Kuhn  and  promised  in  return 
to  expel  the  Rumanians  from  Hungarian  territory  once 
more  and  to  have  the  blockade  raised.  At  the  close  of 
July  some  Magyars  from  Austria  met  Kuhn  at  a  frontier 
station  ^  and  strove  to  persuade  him  to  withdraw  quietly 
into  obscurity,  but  he,  confiding  in  the  policy  of  the  Allies 
and  his  star,  scouted  the  suggestion.  It  was  at  this  junc- 
ture that  the  Rumanians,  pushing  on  to  Budapest,  re- 
solved, come  what  might,  to  put  an  end  to  the  intolerable 
situation  and  to  make  a  clean  job  of  it  once  for  all.  And 
they  succeeded. 

For  Rumania's  initial  military  reverse  *  was  the  result 


'  Moritz  Kuhn,  who  altered  his  name  to  Bela  Kuhn,  was  a  vulgar  crimi- 
nal. Expelled  from  school  for  larceny,  he  underwent  several  terms  of 
imprisonment,  and  is  alleged  to  have  pilfered  from  a  fellow-prisoner.  Even 
among  some  thieves  there  is  no  honor. 

^  Italy  was  represented  by  Lieutenant-Colonel  Romanelli,  who  resided  in 
Budapest ;  Britain,  by  Col.  Sir  Thomas  Cunningham,  who  was  in  Vienna, 
as  was  also  Prince  Livio  Borghese  Later  on  the  Powers  delegated  generals 
to  be  members  of  a  military  mission  to  the  Hungarian  capital. 

3  At  Bruck.  *  On  July  20th. 

223 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

of  a  surprise  attack  by  some  eighty  thousand  men.  But 
her  troops  rapidly  regained  their  warlike  spirit,  recrossed 
the  river  Tisza,  shattered  the  Neo-Bolshevist  regime,  and 
reached  the  environs  of  Budapest. 

By  the  ist  of  August  the  lawless  band  that  was  ruining 
the  country  relinquished  the  reins  of  power,  which  were 
taken  over  at  first  by  a  Socialist  Cabinet  of  which  an  in- 
fluential French  press  organ  wrote:  "The  names  of  the 
new  .  .  .  commissaries  of  the  people  tell  us  nothing,  because 
their  bearers  are  unknown.  But  the  endings  of  their 
names  tell  us  that  most  of  them  are,  like  those  of  the  pre- 
ceding government,  of  Jewish  origin.  Never  since  the 
inauguration  of  official  communism  did  Budapest  better 
deserve  the  appellation  of  Judapest,  which  was  assigned 
to  it  by  the  late  M.  Lueger,  chief  of  the  Christian  Socialists 
of  Vienna.  That  is  an  additional  trait  in  common  with 
the  Russian  Soviets."  ^ 

The  Rumanians  presented  a  stiff  ultimatum  to  the  new 
Hungarian  Cabinet.  They  were  determined  to  safeguard 
their  country  and  its  neighbors  from  a  repetition  of  the 
danger  and  of  the  sacrifices  it  entailed;  in  other  words,  to 
dictate  the  terms  of  a  new  armistice.  The  Powers  de- 
murred and  ordered  them  to  content  themselves  with  the 
old  one  concluded  by  the  Serbian  Voyevod  Mishitch  and 
General  Henrys  in  November  of  the  preceding  year  and 
violated  subsequently  by  the  Magyars.  But  the  objec- 
tions to  this  course  were  many  and  unanswerable.  In 
fact  they  were  largely  identical  v/ith  the  objections  which 
the  Supreme  Council  itself  had  offered  to  the  Polish- 
Ukrainian  armistice.  And  besides  these  there  were  others. 
For  example,  the  Rumanians  had  had  no  hand  or  part  in 
drafting  the  old  armistice.  Moreover  it  was  clearly  in- 
applicable to  the  fresh  campaign  which  was  waged  and 
terminated  nine  months   after  it  had  been   drawn   up. 

1  Le  Journal  des  Dehals,  August  4, 1919. 

224 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

Experience  had  shown  that  it  was  inadequate  to  guarantee 
pubHc  tranquiUity,  for  it  had  not  hindered  Magyar  attacks 
on  the  Rumanians  and  Czechoslovaks.  The  Rumanians, 
therefore,  now  that  they  had  worsted  their  adversaries, 
were  resolved  to  disarm  them  and  secure  a  real  peace. 
They  decided  to  leave  fifteen  thousand  troops  for  the 
maintenance  of  internal  order.  ^  Rumania's  insistence  on 
the  delivery  of  live-stock,  corn,  agricultural  machinery, 
and  rolling-stock  for  railways  was,  it  was  argued,  necessi- 
tated by  want  and  justified  by  equity.  For  it  was  no 
more  than  partial  reparation  for  the  immense  losses  wan- 
tonly inflicted  on  the  nation  by  the  Magyars  and  their 
allies.  Until  then  no  other  amends  had  been  made  or 
even  offered.  The  Austrians,  Hungarians,  and  Germans, 
during  their  two  years'  occupation  of  Rumania,  had  seized 
and  carried  off  from  the  latter  country  two  million  five 
hundred  thousand  tons  of  wheat  and  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  head  of  cattle,  besides  vast  quantities  of  clothing, 
wool,  skins,  and  raw  material,  while  thousands  of  Ru- 
manian homes  were  gutted  and  their  contents  taken  away 
and  sold  in  the  Central  Empires.  Factories  were  stripped 
of  their  machinery  and  the  railways  of  their  engines  and 
wagons.  When  Mackensen  left  there  remained  in  Ru- 
mania only  fifty  locomotives  out  of  the  twelve  hundred 
which  she  possessed  before  the  war.  The  material,  there- 
fore, that  Rumania  removed  from  Hungary  during  the 
first  weeks  of  the  occupation  represented  but  a  small 
part  of  the  quantities  of  which  she  had  been  despoiled 
during  the  war. 

It  was  further  urged  that  at  the  beginning  the  Ru- 
manian delegates  would  have  contented  themselves  with 
reparation  for  losses  wantonly  inflicted  and  for  the 
restitution  of  the  property  wrongfully  taken  from  them 

^  This  is  a  larger  proportion  than  was  left  to  the  Germans  by  the  Treaty 
of  Versailles. 

225 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

by  their  enemies,  on  the  lines  on  which  France  had  ob- 
tained this  offset.  They  had  asked  for  this,  but  were 
informed  that  their  request  could  not  be  complied  with. 
They  were  not  even  permitted  to  send  a  representative 
to  Germany  to  point  out  to  the  Inter-Allied  authorities 
the  objects  of  which  their  nation  had  been  robbed,  as 
though  the  plunderers  would  voluntarily  give  up  their 
ill-gotten  stores!  It  was  partly  because  of  these  re- 
strictions that  the  Rumanian  authorities  resolved  to  take 
what  belonged  to  them  without  more  ado.  And  they 
could  not,  they  said,  afford  to  wait,  because  they  were 
expecting  an  attack  by  the  Russian  Bolsheviki  and  it 
behooved  them  to  have  done  with  one  foe  before  taking 
on  another.  These  explanations  irritated  in  lieu  of  calm- 
ing the  Supreme  Council. 

"Possibly,"  wrote  the  well-informed  Temps,  "Rumania 
would  have  been  better  treated  if  she  had  closed  with 
certain  proposals  of  loans  on  crushing  terms  or  com- 
plied with  certain  demands  for  oil  concessions."  *  Pos- 
sibly. But  surely  problems  of  justice,  equity,  and  right 
ought  never  to  have  been  mixed  up  with  commercial  and 
industrial  interests,  whether  with  the  connivance  or  by 
the  carelessness  of  the  holders  of  a  vast  trust  who  needed 
and  should  have  merited  unlimited  confidence.  It  is 
neither  easy  nor  edifying  to  calculate  the  harm  which 
transactions  of  this  nature,  whether  completed  or  merely 
inchoate,  are  capable  of  inflicting  on  the  great  community 
for  whose  moral  as  well  as  material  welfare  the  Supreme 
Council  was  laboring  in  darkness  against  so  many  ob- 
stacles of  its  own  creation.  Is  it  surprising  that  the 
states  which  suffered  most  from  these  weaknesses  of  the 
potent  delegates  should  have  resented  their  misdirection 
and  endeavored  to  help  themselves  as  best  they  could? 
It  may  be  blameworthy  and  anti-social,  but  it  is  un- 

^  Le  Temps,  July  8,  19 19. 

226 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

happily  natural  and  almost  unavoidable.  It  is  sincerely 
to  be  regretted  that  the  art  of  stimulating  the  nations — 
about  which  the  delegates  were  so  solicitous — to  enthusi- 
astic readiness  to  accept  the  Council  as  the  "moral  guide 
of  the  world"  should  have  been  exercised  in  such  bungling 
fashion. 

The  Supreme  Council  then  feeling  impelled  to  assert 
its  dignity  against  the  wilfulness  of  a  small  nation  de- 
cided on  ignoring  alike  the  service  and  the  disservice 
rendered  by  Rumania's  action.  Accordingly,  it  proceeded 
without  reference  to  any  of  the  recent  events  except  the 
disappearance  of  the  Bolshevist  gang.  Four  generals  were 
accordingly  told  off  to  take  the  conduct  of  Hungarian 
affairs  into  their  hands  despite  their  ignorance  of  the 
actual  conditions  of  the  problem.*  They  were  ordered  to 
disarm  the  Magyars,  to  deliver  up  Hungary's  war  material 
to  the  Allies,  of  whom  only  the  Rumanians  and  the 
Czechoslovaks  had  taken  the  field  against  the  enemy 
since  the  conclusion  of  the  armistice  the  year  before,  and 
they  were  also  to  exercise  their  authority  over  the  Ru- 
manian victors  and  the  Serbs,  both  of  whom  occupied 
Hungarian  territory.  The  Temps  significantly  remarked 
that  the  Supreme  Council,  while  not  wishing  to  deal  with 
any  Hungarian  government  but  one  qualified  to  repre- 
sent the  country,  "seems  particularly  eager  to  see  re- 
sumed the  importation  of  foreign  wares  into  Hungary. 
Certain  persons  appear  to  fear  that  Rumania,  by  retaking 
from  the  Magyars  wagons  and  engines,  might  check  the 
resumption  of  this  traffic."  - 

What  it  all  came  to  was  that  the  Great  Powers,  who  had 
left  Rumania  to  her  fate  when  she  was  attacked  by  the 
Magyars,   intervened  the  moment  the  assailed  nation, 


*  It  was  the  habitual  practice  of  the  Conference  to  intrust  missions  abroad 
to  generals  who  knew  nothing  whatever  about  the  countries  to  which  they 
were  sent.  -  Le  Temps,  August  8,  191 9. 

1§  227 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

helping  itself,  got  the  better  of  its  enemy,  and  then  they 
resolved  to  balk  it  of  the  fruits  of  victory  and  of  the 
safeguards  it  would  fain  have  created  for  the  future. 
It  was  to  rely  upon  the  Supreme  Council  once  more,  to 
take  the  broken  reed  for  a  solid  staff.  That  the  Powers 
had  something  to  urge  in  support  of  their  interposition 
will  not  be  denied.  They  rightly  set  forth  that  Rumania 
was  not  Hungary's  only  creditor.  Her  neighbors  also 
possessed  claims  that  must  be  satisfied  as  far  as  feasible, 
and  equity  prompted  the  pooling  of  all  available  assets. 
This  plea  could  not  be  refuted.  But  the  credit  which  the 
pleaders  ought  to  have  enjoyed  in  the  eyes  of  the  Ru- 
manian nation  was  so  completely  sapped  by  their  ante- 
cedents that  no  heed  was  paid  to  their  reasoning,  suasion, 
or  promises. 

Rumania,  therefore,  in  requisitioning  Hungarian  prop- 
erty was  formally  in  the  wrong.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
should  be  borne  in  mind  that  she,  like  other  nations, 
was  exasperated  by  the  high-handed  action  of  the  Great 
Powers,  who  proceeded  as  though  her  good-will  and  loy- 
alty were  of  no  consequence  to  the  pacification  of  east- 
ern Europe. 

After  due  deliberation  the  Supreme  Council  agreed  upon 
the  wording  of  a  conciliatory  message,  not  to  the  Ru- 
manians, but  to  the  Magyars,  to  be  despatched  to 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Romanelli.  The  gist  of  it  was  the  old 
refrain,  "to  carry  out  the  terms  of  the  armistice  ^  and 
respect  the  frontiers  traced  by  the  Supreme  Council  ^ 
and  we  will  protect  you  from  the  Rumanians,  who  have 
no  authority  from  us.  We  arc  sending  forthwith  an  In- 
ter-Allied military  commission  ^  to  superintend  the  dis- 
armament and  see  that  the  Rumanian  troops  withdraw." 

^  Armistice  of  November  13,  1918,  which  had  become  void. 
^  On  June  13,  19 19. 

3  Composed  of  four  members,  one  each  for  Britain,  the  United  States, 
France,  and  Italy. 

228 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  Rumanian  conditions  were 
drastic.  But  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  provoca- 
tion amounted  ahnost  to  justification.  And  as  for  the 
crime  of  disobedience,  it  will  not  be  gainsaid  that  a  large 
part  of  the  responsibility  fell  on  the  shoulders  of  the  law- 
givers in  Paris,  whose  decrees,  coming  oracularly  from 
Olympian  heights  without  reference  to  local  or  other 
concrete  circumstances,  inflicted  heavy  losses  in  blood 
and  substance  on  the  ill-starred  people  of  Rumania.  And 
to  make  matters  worse,  Rumania's  official  representatives 
at  the  Conference  had  been  not  merely  ignored,  but  repri- 
manded like  naughty  school-children  by  a  harsh  dominie 
and  occasionally  humiliated  by  men  whose  only  excuse  was 
nervous  tenseness  in  consequence  of  overwork  combined 
with  morbid  impatience  at  being  contradicted  in  matters 
which  they  did  not  understand.  Other  states  had  con- 
templated open  rebellion  against  the  big  ferrule  of  the 
"bosses,"  and  more  than  once  the  resolution  was  taken 
to  go  on  strike  unless  certain  concessions  were  accorded 
them.     Alone  the  Rumanians  executed  their  resolve. 

Naturally  the  destiny-weavers  of  peoples  and  nations 
in  Paris  were  dismayed  at  the  prospect  and  apprehensive 
lest  the  Rumanians  should  end  the  war  in  their  own  way. 
They  despatched  three  notes  in  quick  succession  to  the 
Bucharest  government,  one  of  which  reads  like  a  peevish 
indictment  hastily  drafted  before  the  evidence  had  been 
sifted  or  even  carefully  read.  It  raked  up  many  of  the 
old  accusations  that  had  been  leveled  against  the  Ruma- 
nians, tacked  them  on  to  the  crime  of  insubordination,  and 
without  waiting  for  an  answer — assuming,  in  fact,  that 
there  could  be  no  satisfactory  answer — summoned  them 
to  prove  publicly  by  their  acts  that  they  accepted  and 
were  ready  to  execute  in  good  faith  the  policy  decided 
upon  by  the  Conference.^ 

*  On  July  20th. 

239 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

That  note  seemed  unnecessarily  offensive  and  acted 
on  the  Rumanians  as  a  powerful  irritant/  besides  exposing 
the  active  members  of  the  Supreme  Council  to  scathing 
criticism.  The  Rumanians  asked  their  Entente  friends 
in  private  to  outline  the  policy  which  they  were  accused 
of  countering,  and  were  told  in  reply  that  it  was  beyond 
the  power  of  the  most  ingenious  hair-splitting  casuist 
to  define  or  describe.  "As  for  us,"  wrote  one  of  the 
stanchest  supporters  of  the  Entente  in  French  journal- 
ism, "who  have  followed  with  attention  the  labors  and 
the  utterances,  written  and  oral,  of  the  Four,  the  Five, 
the  Ten,  of  the  Supreme  and  Superior  Councils,  we  have 
not  yet  succeeded  in  discovering  what  was  the  'policy 
decided  by  the  Conference.'  We  have  indeed  heard  or 
read  countless  discourses  pronounced  by  the  choir-masters. 
They  abound  in  noble  thought,  in  eloquent  expositions, 
in  protests,  and  in  promises.  But  of  aught  that  could 
be  termed  a  policy  we  have  not  found  a  trace. "^  This 
verdict  will  be  indorsed  by  the  historian. 

The  Rumanians  seemed  in  no  hurry  to  reply  to  the 
Council's  three  notes.  They  were  said  to  be  too  busy 
dealing  out  what  they  considered  rough  and  ready  justice 
to  their  enemies,  and  were  impatient  of  the  intervention 
of  their  "friends."  They  seized  rolling-stock,  cattle, 
agricultural  implements,  and  other  property  of  the  kind 
that  had  been  stolen  from  their  own  people  and  sent 
the  booty  home  without  much  ado.  Work  of  this  kind 
was  certain  to  be  accompanied  by  excesses  and  the  Con- 
ference received  numerous  protests  from  the  aggrieved 
inhabitants.  But  on  the  whole  Rumania,  at  any  rate 
during  the  first  few  weeks  of  the  occupation,  had  the 
substantial  sympathy  of  the  largest  and  most  influential 


1  Paris  journals  ascribed  it  to  Mr.  Balfour,  although  it  does  not  bear  the 
hall-mark  of  a  diplomatist. 

^  Le  Journal  des  Debats,  August  13,  1919. 

230 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

section  of  the  world's  press.  People  declared  that  they 
were  glad  to  see  the  haze  of  self -righteousness  and  cant  at 
last  dispelled  by  a  whiff  of  wholesome  egotism.  From  the 
outspoken  comments  of  the  most  widely  circulating 
journals  in  France  and  Britain  the  dictators  in  Paris, 
who  were  indignant  that  the  counsels  of  the  strong  should 
carry  so  little  weight  in  eastern  Europe,  could  acquaint 
themselves  with  the  impression  which  their  efforts  at 
cosmic  legislation  were  producing  among  the  saner  ele- 
ments of  mankind. 

In  almost  every  language  one  could  read  words  of 
encouragement  to  the  recalcitrant  Rumanians  for  having 
boldly  burst  the  irksome  bonds  in  which  the  peoples  of 
the  world  were  being  pinioned.  "It  is  our  view,"  wrote 
one  firm  adherent  of  the  Entente,  "that  having  proved 
incapable  of  protecting  the  Rumanians  in  their  hour  of 
danger,  our  alliance  cannot  to-day  challenge  the  safe- 
guards which  they  have  won  for  themselves."  ^ 

"If  liberty  had  her  old  influence,"  one  read  in  another 
popular  journal,^  "the  Great  Powers  would  not  be  bring- 
ing pressure  to  bear  on  Rumania  with  the  object  of  saving 
Hungary  from  richly  deserved  punishment."  "Instead 
of  nagging  the  Rumanians,"  wrote  an  eminent  French 
publicist,  "they  would  do  much  better  to  keep  the  Turks 
in  hand.  If  the  Turks  in  despair,  in  order  to  win  Ameri- 
can sympathies,  proclaim  themselves  socialists,  syndi- 
calists, or  laborists,  will  President  Wilson  permit  them  to 
renovate  Armenia  and  other  places  after  the  manner  of 
Jinghiz  Khan  ? "  ^ 

But  what  may  have  weighed  with  the  Supreme  Council 
far  more  than  the  disapproval  of  publicists  were  its  own 
impotence,  the  undignified  figure  it  was  cutting,  and  the 


'  Pertinax  in  L'Echo  de  Paris,  August  lo,  1919. 

^  TJie  New  York  Herald  (Paris  edition),  August  10,  1919. 

'  Le  Journal  des  Debats,  August  13,  1919.    Article  by  Auguste  Gauvain, 

231 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

injury  that  was  being  done  to  the  future  League  of  Nations 
by  the  impunity  with  which  one  of  the  lesser  states 
could  thus  set  at  naught  the  decisions  of  its  creators  and 
treat  them  with  almost  the  same  disrespect  which  they 
themselves  had  displayed  toward  the  Rumanian  delegates 
in  Paris.  They  saw  that  once  their  energetic  representa- 
tions were  ignored  by  the  Bucharest  government  they 
were  at  the  end  of  their  means  of  influencing  it.  To 
compel  obedience  by  force  was  for  the  time  being  out 
of  the  question.  In  these  circumstances  the  only  issue 
left  them  was  to  make  a  virtue  of  necessity  and  veer  round 
to  the  Rumanian  point  of  view  as  unobtrusively  as  might 
be,  so  as  to  tide  over  the  transient  crisis.  And  that  was 
the  course  which  they  finally  struck  out. 

Matters  soon  came  to  the  culminating  point.  The 
members  of  the  Allied  Military  Mission  had  received  full 
powers  to  force  the  commanders  of  the  troops  of  occupa- 
tion to  obey  the  decisions  of  the  Conference,  and  when 
they  were  confronted  with  M.  Diamandi,  the  ex-Minister 
to  Petrograd,  they  issued  their  orders  in  the  name  of  the 
Supreme  Council.  "We  take  orders  here  only  from  our 
own  government,  which  is  in  Bucharest,"  was  the  answer 
they  received.  The  Rumanians  have  a  proverb  which 
runs:  "Even  a  donkey  will  not  fall  twice  into  the  same 
quicksand,"  and  they  may  have  quoted  it  to  General 
Gorton  when  refusing  to  follow  the  Allies  after  their 
previous  painful  experience.  Then  the  mission  tele- 
graphed to  Paris  for  further  instructions.*  In  the  mean- 
while the  Rumanian  government  had  sent  its  answer  to 
the  three  notes  of  the  Council.  And  its  tenor  was  firm 
and  unyielding.  Undeterred  by  menaces,  M.  Bratiano 
maintained  that  he  had  done  the  right  thing  in  sending 
troops  to  Budapest,  imposing  terms  on  Hungary  and 
re-establishing  order.     As  a  matter  of  fact  he  had  rendered 

^  General  Gorton  is  the  one  who  is  said  to  have  despatched  the  telegram. 

232 


THE  LESSER   STATES 

a  sterling  service  to  all  Europe,  including  France  and 
Britain.  For  if  Kuhn  and  his  confederates  had  contrived 
to  overrun  Rumania,  the  Great  Powers  would  have  been 
morally  bound  to  hasten  to  the  assistance  of  their  defeated 
ally.  The  press  was  permitted  to  announce  that  the 
Council  of  Five  was  preparing  to  accept  the  Rumanian 
position.  The  members  of  the  Allied  Military  Mission  were 
informed  that  they  were  not  empowered  to  give  orders 
to  the  Rumanians,  but  only  to  consult  and  negotiate 
with  them,  whereby  all  their  tact  and  consideration  were 
earnestly  solicited. 

Bat  the  palliatives  devised  by  the  delegates  were  un- 
availing to  heal  the  breach.  After  a  while  the  Council, 
having  had  no  answer  to  its  urgent  notes,  decided  to  send 
an  ultimatum  to  Rumania,  calling  on  her  to  restore  the 
rolling-stock  which  she  had  seized  and  to  evacuate  the 
Hungarian  capital.  The  terms  of  this  document  were 
described  as  harsh.*  Happily,  before  it  was  despatched 
the  Council  learned  that  the  Rumanian  government  had 
never  received  the  communications  nor  seventy  others 
forwarded  by  wireless  during  the  same  period.  Once 
more  it  had  taken  a  decision  without  acquainting  itself 
of  the  facts.  Thereupon  a  special  messenger  ^  was  sent 
to  Bucharest  with  a  note  "couched  in  stem  terms," 
which,  however,  was  "milder  in  tone"  than  the  ultimatum. 

To  go  back  for  a  moment  to  the  elusive  question  of 
motive,  which  was  not  without  influence  on  Rumania's 
conduct.  Were  the  action  and  inaction  of  the  plenipo- 
tentiaries merely  the  result  of  a  lack  of  cohesion  among 
their  ideas?  Or  was  it  that  they  were  thinking  mainly 
of  the  fleeting  interests  of  the  moment  and  unwilling  to 
precipitate  their  conceptions  of  the  future  in  the  form 


'  In  the  beginning  of  September,  1919. 

2  The  French  go\'ernment  liaving  inudently  refused  to  fiu*nish  an  envoy, 
the  British  chose  Sir  George  Clark. 

233 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

of  a  constructive  policy?  The  historian  will  do  well  to 
leave  their  motives  to  another  tribunal  and  confine  him- 
self to  facts,  which  even  when  carefully  sifted  are  nu- 
merous and  significant  enough. 

During  the  progress  of  the  events  just  sketched  there 
were  launched  certain  interesting  accounts  of  what  was 
going  on  below  the  surface,  which  had  such  impartial  and 
well-informed  vouchers  that  the  chronicler  of  the  Con- 
ference cannot  pass  them  over  in  silence.  If  true,  as  they 
appear  to  be,  they  warrant  the  belief  that  two  distinct 
elements  lay  at  the  root  of  the  Secret  Council's  dealings 
with  Rumania.  One  of  them  was  their  repugnance  to 
her  whole  system  of  government,  with  its  survivals  of 
feudalism,  anti-Semitism,  and  conservatism.  Associated 
with  this  was,  people  alleged,  a  wish  to  provoke  a  radical 
and,  as  they  thought,  beneficent  change  in  the  entire  re- 
gime by  getting  rid  of  its  chiefs.  This  plan  had  been  suc- 
cessfully tried  against  MM.  Orlando  and  Sonnino  in 
Italy.  Their  solicitude  for  this  latter  aim  may  have 
been  whetted  by  a  personal  lack  of  sympathy  for  the 
Rumanian  delegates,  with  whom  the  Anglo-Saxon  chiefs 
hardly  ever  conversed.  It  was  no  secret  that  the  Ru- 
manian Premier  found  it  exceedingly  difficult  to  obtain 
an  audience  of  his  colleague  President  Wilson,  from  whom 
he  finally  parted  almost  as  much  a  stranger  as  when  he 
first  arrived  in  Paris. 

It  may  not  be  amiss  to  record  an  instance  of  the  methods 
of  the  Supreme  Council,  for  by  putting  himself  in  the  place 
of  the  Rumanian  Premier  the  reader  may  the  more  clearly 
understand  his  frame  of  mind  toward  that  body.  In 
June  the  troops  of  Moritz  (or  Bela)  Kuhn  had  inflicted  a 
severe  defeat  on  the  Czechoslavs.  Thereupon  the  Secret 
Council  of  Four  or  Five,  whose  shortsighted  action  was 
answerable  for  the  reverse,  decided  to  remonstrate  with 
him.     Accordingly  they  requested  him  to  desist  from  the 

?34 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

offensive.  Only  then  diJ  it  occur  to  them  that  if  he  was 
to  withdraw  his  armies  behind  the  frontiers,  he  must  be 
informed  where  these  frontiers  were.  They  had  already 
been  determined  in  secret  by  the  three  great  statesmen, 
who  carefully  concealed  them  not  merely  from  an  in- 
cjuisitive  public,  but  also  from  the  states  concerned.  The 
Rumanian,  Jugoslav  and  Czechoslovak  delegates  were, 
therefore,  as  much  in  the  dark  on  the  subject  as  were  rank 
outsiders  and  enemies.  But  as  soon  as  circumstances 
forced  the  hand  of  all  the  plenipotentiaries  the  secret  had 
to  be  confided  to  them  all.^  The  Hungarian  Dictator 
pleaded  that  if  his  troops  had  gone  out  of  bounds  it  was 
because  the  frontiers  were  unknown  to  him.  The 
Czechoslovaks  respectfully  demurred  to  one  of  the 
boundaries  along  the  river  Ipol  which  it  was  difficult  to 
justify  and  easy  to  rectify.  But  the  Rumanian  delega- 
tion, confronted  with  the  map,  met  the  decision  with  a 
frank  protest.  For  it  amounted  to  the  abandonment  of 
one  of  their  three  vital  irreducible  claims  which  they  were 
not  empowered  to  renounce.  Consequently  they  felt 
unable  to  acquiesce  in  it.  But  the  Supreme  Council 
insisted.  The  second  delegate,  M.  Misu,  was  in  con- 
sequence obliged  to  start  at  once  for  Bucharest  to  consult 
with  the  King  and  the  Cabinet  and  consider  what  action 
the  circumstances  called  for.  In  the  meantime,  the  en- 
tire question,  and  together  with  it  some  of  the  practical 
consequences  involved  by  the  tentative  solution,  remained 
in  suspense. 

When  certain  clauses  of  the  Peace  Treaty,  which,  al- 
though they  materially  affected  Rumania,  had  been 
drafted  without  the  knowledge  of  her  plenipotentiaries, 
were  quite  ready,  the  Rumanian  Premier  was  summoned  to 
take  cognizance  of  them.  Their  tenor  surprised  and 
irritated  him.     As  he  felt  unable  to  assent  to  them,  and 

'  On  June  lo,  1919. 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

as  the  document  was  to  be  presented  to  the  enemy  in  a 
day  or  two,  he  deemed  it  his  duty  to  mention  his  objec- 
tions at  once.  But  hardly  had  he  begun  when  M, 
Clemenceau  arose  and  exclaimed,  "M.  Bratiano,  you  are 
here  to  listen,  not  to  comment."  Stringent  measures  may 
have  been  considered  useful  and  dictatorial  methods  in- 
dispensable in  default  of  reasoning  or  suasion,  but  it  was 
surely  incumbent  on  those  who  employed  them  to  choose 
a  form  which  would  deprive  them  of  their  sting  or  make 
them  less  personally  painful. 

For  whatever  one  may  thinlv  of  the  wisdom  of  the 
policy  adopted  by  the  Stipreme  Council  toward  the  un- 
privileged states,  it  would  be  difficult  to  justify  the  man- 
ner in  which  they  imposed  it.  Patience,  tact,  and  suasion 
are  indispensable  requisites  in  men  who  assume  the  func- 
tions of  leaders  and  guides,  yet  know  that  military  force 
alone  is  inadequate  to  shape  the  future  after  their  concep- 
tion. The  delegates  could  look  only  to  moral  power  for 
the  execution  of  their  far-reaching  plans,  yet  they  spurned 
the  means  of  acquiring  it.  The  best  construction  one 
can  put  upon  their  action  will  represent  it  as  the  wrecking 
of  the  substance  by  the  form.  By  establishing  a  situation 
of  force  throughout  Europe  the  Council  created  and  sanc- 
tioned the  principle  that  it  nuist  be  maintained  by  force. 

But  the  affronted  nations  did  not  stop  at  this  mild  criti- 
cism. They  assailed  the  policy  itself,  cast  suspicion  on 
the  disinterestedness  of  the  motives  that  inspired  it,  and 
contributed  thereby  to  generate  an  atmosphere  of  dis- 
trust in  which  the  frail  organism  that  was  shortly  to  be 
called  into  being  could  not  thrive.  Contemplated  through 
this  distorting  medium,  one  set  of  delegates  was  taunted 
with  aiming  at  a  monopoly  of  imperialism  and  the  other 
tvith  rank  hypocrisy.  It  is  superfluous  to  remark  that 
the  idealism  and  lofty  aims  of  the  President  of  the  United 
States  were  never  questioned  by  the  most  reckless  Ther- 

236 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

sites.     The  heaviest  charges  brought  against  him  were  j 
weakness  of  will,  exaggerated  self-esteem,  impatience  of  I 
contradiction,  and  a  naive  ^^earning  for  something  con-   \ 
Crete  to  take  home  with  him,  in  the  shape  of  a  covenant     * 
of  peoples. 

The  reports  circulating  in  the  French  capital  respecting 
vast  commercial  enterprises  about  to  be  inaugurated  by 
English-speaking  peoples  and  about  proposals  that  the 
governments  of  the  countries  interested  should  facilitate 
them,  were  destructive  of  the  respect  due  to  statesmen 
whose  attachment  to  lofty  ideals  should  have  absorbed 
ever}^  other  motive  in  their  ethico-political  activity.  Thus 
it  was  affirmed  by  responsible  politicians  that  an  official 
representative  of  an  English-speaking  country  gave  ex- 
pression to  the  view,  which  he  also  attributed  to  his  gov- 
ernment, that  henceforth  his  country  should  play  a  much 
larger  part  in  the  economic  life  of  eastern  Europe  than 
any  other  nation.  This,  he  added,  was  a  conscious  aim 
which  would  be  steadily  pursued,  and  to  the  attainment 
of  which  he  hoped  the  politicians  and  their  people  would 
contribute.  So  far  this,  it  may  be  contended,  was  per- 
fectly legitimate. 

But  it  was  further  affirmed,  and  not  by  idle  quidnuncs, 
that  one  of  Rumania's  prominent  men  had  been  informed 
that  Rumania  could  count  on  the  good-will  and  financial 
assistance  of  the  United  States  only  if  her  Premier  gave 
an  assurance  that,  besides  the  special  privileges  to  be 
conferred  on  the  Jewish  minority  in  his  country,  he  would 
also  grant  industrial  and  commercial  concessions  to  cer- 
tain Jewish  groups  and  firms  who  reside  and  do  business 
in  the  United  States.  And  by  way  of  taking  time  by  the 
forelock  one  or  more  of  these  firms  had  already  despatched 
representatives  to  Rumania  to  study  and,  if  possible,  ear- 
mark the  resources  which  they  proposed  to  exploit. 

Now,  to  expand  the  trade  of  one's  country  is  a  legiti- 

237 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

mate  ambition,  and  to  hold  that  Jewish  firms  are  the  best 
qualified  to  develop  the  resources  of  Rumania  is  a  tenable 
position.  But  to  mix  up  any  commercial  scheme  with  the 
ethical  regeneration  of  Europe  is,  to  put  it  mildly,  im- 
politic. However  unimpeachable  the  motives  of  the  pro- 
moter of  such  a  project,  it  is  certain  to  damage  both 
causes  which  he  has  at  heart.  But  the  report  does  not 
leave  the  matter  here.  It  goes  on  to  state  that  a  very 
definite  proposal,  smacking  of  an  ultimatum,  was  finally 
presented,  which  set  before  the  Rumanians  two  alterna- 
tives from  which  they  were  to  choose — either  the  conces- 
sions asked  for,  which  would  earn  for  them  the  financial 
assistance  of  the  United  States,  or  else  no  concessions  and 
no  help. 

At  a  Conference,  the  object  of  which  was  the  uplifting 
of  the  life  of  nations  from  the  squalor  of  sordid  ambitions 
backed  by  brutal  force,  to  ideal  aims  and  moral  relation- 
ship, haggling  and  chaffering  such  as  this  seemed  wholly 
out  of  place.  It  reminded  one  of  "those  that  sold  oxen 
and  sheep  and  doves,  and  the  changers  of  money  sitting" 
in  the  temple  of  Jerusalem  who  were  one  day  driven  out 
with  "a  scourge  of  small  cords."  The  Rumanians  hoped 
that  the  hucksters  in  the  latter-day  temple  of  peace  might 
be  got  rid  of  in  a  similar  way;  one  of  them  suggested 
boldly  asking  President  Wilson  himself  to  say  what  he 
thought  of  the  policy  underlying  the  disconcerting  pro- 
posal. .  .  . 

The  other  alleged  element  of  the  Supreme  Council's 
attitude  needs  no  qualification.  The  mystery  that  en- 
wrapped the  orders  from  the  Conference  which  suddenly 
arrested  the  march  of  the  Rumanian  and  Allied  troops, 
when  they  were  nearing  Budapest  for  the  purpose  of  over- 
throwing Bela  Kuhn,  never  perplexed  those  who  claimed 
to  possess  trustworthy  information  about  the  goings-on 
between  certain  enterprising  officers  belonging  some  to 

238 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

the  Allied  Army  of  Occupation  and  others  to  the  Hun- 
garian forces.  One  of  these  transactions  is  alleged  to  have 
taken  place  between  Kuhn  himself,  who  is  naturally  a 
shrewd  observer  and  hard  bargain-driver,  and  a  certain 
financial  group  which  for  obvious  reasons  remained  name- 
less. The  object  of  the  compact  was  the  bestowal  on  the 
group  of  concessions  in  the  Banat  in  return  for  an  under- 
taking that  the  Bolshevist  Dictator  would  be  left  in  power 
and  subsequently  honored  by  an  invitation  to  the  Con- 
ference. The  plenipotentiaries'  command  arresting  the 
march  against  Kuhn  and  their  conditional  promise  to 
summon  him  to  the  Conference,  dovetail  with  this  con- 
tract. These  undeniable  coincidences  are  humiliating. 
The  nexus  between  them  was  discovered  and  announced 
before  the  stipulations  were  carried  out. 

The  Banat  had  been  an  apple  of  discord  ever  since  the 
close  of  hostilities.  The  country,  inhabited  chiefly  by 
Rumanians,  but  with  a  considerable  admixture  of  Magyar 
and  Saxon  elements,  is  one  of  the  richest  unexploited 
regions  in  Europe.  Its  mines  of  gold,  zinc,  lead,  coal, 
and  iron  offer  an  irresistible  temptation  to  pushing  capi- 
talists and  their  governments,  who  feel  further  attracted 
by  the  credible  announcement  that  it  also  possesses  oil 
in  quantities  large  enough  to  warrant  exploitation.  It 
was  partly  in  order  to  possess  herself  of  these  abundant 
resources  and  create  an  accomplished  fact  that  Serbia, 
who  also  founded  her  claim  on  higher  ground,  laid  hands 
on  the  administration  of  the  Banat.  But  the  experiment 
was  disappointing.  The  Jugoslavs  having  failed  to  main- 
tain themselves  there,  the  bargain  just  sketched  was  en- 
tered into  by  officers  of  the  Hungarian  and  Allied  armies. 
For  concession-hunters  are  not  fastidious  about  the 
nationality  or  character  of  those  who  can  bestow  what 
they  happen  to  be  seeking. 

This   stroke   of   jobbery   had   political   consequences. 

239 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

That  was  inevitable.  For  so  long  as  the  Banat  remained 
in  Rumania  or  Serbian  hands  it  could  not  be  alienated 
in  favor  of  any  foreign  group.  Therefore  secession  from 
both  those  states  was  a  preliminary  condition  to  economic 
alienation.  The  task  was  bravely  tackled.  An  "inde- 
pendent republic"  was  suddenly  added  to  the  states  of 
Europe.  This  amazing  creation,  which  fitted  in  with  the 
Balkanizing  craze  of  the  moment,  was  the  work  of  a 
few  wire-pullers  in  which  the  easy-going  inhabitants  had 
neither  hand  nor  part.  Indeed,  they  were  hardly  aware 
that  the  Republic  of  the  Banat  had  been  proclaimed. 
The  amateur  state-builders  were  obliging  officers  of  the 
two  armies,  and  behind  them  were  speculators  and 
concession-hunters.  It  was  obvious  that  the  new  com- 
munity, as  it  contained  a  very  small  population  for  an 
independent  state,  would  require  a  protector.  Its  spon- 
sors, who  had  foreseen  this,  provided  for  it  by  promising 
to  assign  the  humanitarian  role  of  protectress  of  the 
Banat  Republic  to  democratic  France.  And  French 
agents  were  on  the  spot  to  approve  the  arrangement. 
Thus  far  the  story,  of  which  I  have  given  but  the  merest 
outline.^ 

In  this  compromising  fashion  then  Bela  Kuhn  was  left 
for  the  time  being  in  undisturbed  power,  and  none  of  his 
friends  had  any  fear  that  he  would  be  driven  out  by  the 
Allies  so  long  as  he  contrived  to  hit  it  off  with  the  Hun- 
garians. Should  these  turn  away  from  him,  however, 
the  cosmopolitan  financiers,  whose  cardinal  virtues  are 
suppleness  and  adaptability,  would  readily  work  with  his 
successor,  whoever  he  might  be.  The  few  who  knew  of 
this  quickening  of  high  ideals  with  low  intrigue  were 
shocked  by  the  light-hearted  way  in  which  under  the  aegis 
of  the  Conference  a  discreditable  pact  was  made  with  the 


'  The  actors  in  this  episode  were  not  all  officers  and  civil  servants.     They 
included  some  men  in  responsible  positions. 

240 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

"enemy  of  the  human  race,"  a  grotesque  regime  foisted 
on  a  simple-minded  people  without  consideration  for  the 
princi]ile  of  self-determination,  and  the  very  existence  of 
the  Czechoslovak  RepubHc  imperiled.  Indeed,  for  a 
brief  while  it  looked  as  though  the  Bolshevist  forces  of 
the  Ukraine  and  Russia  would  effect  a  junction  with  the 
troops  of  Bela  Kuhn  and  shatter  eastern  Europe  to  shreds. 
To  such  dangerous  extent  did  the  Supreme  Council  in- 
directly abet  the  Bolshevist  peace-breakers  against  the 
Rumanians  and  Czechoslovak  allies. 

It  was  at  this  conjuncture  that  a  Rumanian  friend  re- 
marked to  me:  "The  apprehension  which  our  people 
expressed  to  you  some  months  ago  when  they  rejected 
the  demand  for  concessions  has  been  verified  by  events. 
Please  remember  that  when  striking  the  balance  of 
accounts." 

The  fact  could  not  be  blinked  that  in  the  camp  of  the 
Allies  there  was  a  serious  schism.  The  partizans  of  the 
Supreme  Council  accused  the  Bucharest  government  of 
secession,  and  were  accused  in  turn  of  having  misled  their 
Rumanian  partners,  of  having  planned  to  exploit  them 
economically,  of  having  favored  their  Bolshevist  in- 
vaders, and  pursued  a  policy  of  blackmail.  The  rights 
and  wrongs  of  this  quarrel  had  best  be  left  to  another 
tribunal.  What  can  hardly  be  gainsaid  is  that  in  a 
general  way  the  Rumanians—  and  not  these  alone — were 
implicitly  classed  as  people  of  a  secondary  category,  who 
stood  to  gain  by  every  measure  for  their  good  which  the 
culture-bearers  in  Paris  might  devise.  These  inferior 
nations  were  all  incarnate  anachronisms,  relics  of  dark 
ages  which  had  survived  into  an  epoch  of  democracy  and 
liberty,  and  it  now  behooved  them  to  readjust  themselves 
to  that.  Their  institutions  must  be  modernized,  their 
Old  World  conceptions  abandoned,  and  their  people 
taught  to  imitate  the  progressive  nations  of  the  West. 

241 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

What  the  populations  thought  and  felt  on  the  subject 
was  irrelevant,  they  being  less  qualified  to  judge  what  was 
good  for  them  than  their  self-constituted  guides  and 
guardians.  To  the  angry  voices  which  their  spokesmen 
uplifted  no  heed  need  be  paid,  and  passive  resistance 
could  be  overcome  by  coercion.  This  modified  version 
of  Carlyle's  doctrine  would  seem  to  be  at  the  root  of  the 
Supreme  Council's  action  toward  the  lesser  nations 
generally  and  in  especial  toward  Rumania. 

POLAND  AND  THE  SUPREME  COUNCIL 

This  frequent  misdirection  by  the  Supreme  Council, 
however  one  may  explain  it,  created  an  electric  state  of 
the  political  atmosphere  among  all  nations  whose  interests 
were  set  down  or  treated  as  "Hmited,"  and  more  than 
one  of  them,  as  we  saw,  contemplated  striking  out  a 
policy  of  passive  resistance.  As  a  matter  of  fact  some 
of  them  timidly  adopted  it  more  than  once,  almost 
always  with  success  and  invariably  with  impunity.  It 
was  thus  that  the  Czechoslovaks — the  most  docile  of 
them  all — ^disregarding  the  injunctions  of  the  Conference, 
took  possession  of  contentious  territory,^  and  remained 
in  possession  of  it  for  several  months,  and  that  the  Jugo- 
slavs occupied  a  part  of  the  district  of  Klagenfurt  and  for 
a  long  time  paid  not  the  slightest  heed  to  the  order  issued 
by  the  Supreme  Council  to  evacuate  it  in  favor  of  the 
Austrians,  and  that  the  Poles  applied  the  same  tactics  to 
eastern  Galicia.  The  story  of  this  last  revolt  is  charac- 
teristic alike  of  the  ignorance  and  of  the  weakness  of  the 
Powers  which  had  assumed  the  functions  of  world- 
administrators.  During  the  hostilities  between  the  Ru- 
thenians  of  Galicia  and  the  Poles,^  the  Council,  taunted 
by  the  press  with  the  numerous -'wars  that  were  being 

^  In  Teschen. 

242 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

waged  while  the  world's  peace-makers  were  chatting  about 
cosmic  politics  in  the  twilight  of  the  Paris  conclave, 
issued  an  imperative  order  that  an  armistice  must  be 
concluded  at  once.  But  the  Poles  appealed  to  events, 
which  swiftly  settled  the  matter  as  they  anticipated. 
Neither  the  Supreme  Council  nor  the  agents  it  employed 
had  a  real  grasp  of  the  east  European  situation,  or  of  the 
role  deliberately  assigned  to  Poland  by  its  French  sponsors 
— that  of  superseding  Russia  as  a  bulwark  against  Ger- 
many in  the  East — or  of  the  local  conditions.  Their 
action,  as  was  natural  in  these  circumstances,  was  a 
sequence  of  gropings  in  the  dark,  of  incongruous  behests, 
exhortations,  and  prohibitions  which  discredited  them  in 
the  eyes  of  those  on  whose  trust  and  docility  the  success 
of  their  mission  depended. 

Consciousness  of  these  disadvantages  may  have  had 
much  to  do  with  the  rigid  secrecy  which  the  delegates 
maintained  before  their  desultory  talks  ripened  into  dis- 
cussions. In  the  case  of  Poland,  as  of  Rumania,  the  veil 
was  opaque,  and  was  never  voluntarily  lifted.  One  day  ^ 
the  members  of  the  Polish  delegation,  eager  to  get  an 
inkling  of  what  had  been  arranged  by  the  Council  of  Four 
about  Dantzig,  requested  M.  Clemenceau  to  apprize  them 
at  least  of  the  upshot  if  not  of  the  details.  The  French 
Premier,  who  has  a  quizzing  way  and  a  keen  sense  of 
humor,  replied,  "On  the  26th  inst.  you  will  learn  the  pre- 
cise terms."  But  Poland's  representative  insisted  and 
pleaded  suasively  for  a  hint  of  what  had  been  settled. 
The  Premier  finally  consented  and  said,  "Tell  the  Gen- 
eral Secretary  of  the  Conference,  M.  Dutasta,  from  me, 
that  he  may  make  the  desired  communication  to  you." 
The  delegate  accordingly  repaired  to  M.  Dutasta,  pre- 
ferred his  request,  and  received  this  reply:  "M.  Clemen- 
ceau may  say  what  he  likes.    His  words  do  not  bind  the 

1  On  Friday,  April  18,  1919. 
17  243 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

Conference.  Before  I  consider  myself  released  from 
secrecy  I  must  have  the  consent  of  all  his  colleagues  as 
well.  If  you  would  kindly  bring  me  their  express  authori- 
zation I  will  communicate  the  information  you  demand." 
That  closed  the  incident. 

When  the  Council  finally  agreed  to  a  solution,  the  dele- 
gates were  convoked  to  learn  its  nature  and  to  make  a 
vow  of  obedience  to  its  decisions.  During  the  first  stage 
of  the  Conference  the  representatives  of  the  lesser  states 
had  sometimes  been  permitted  to  put  questions  and  pre- 
sent objections.  But  later  on  even  this  privilege  was 
withdrawn.  The  following  description  of  what  went  on 
may  serve  as  an  illustration  of  the  Council's  mode  of  pro- 
cedure. One  day  the  Polish  delegation  was  summoned 
before  the  Special  Commission  to  discuss  an  armistice 
between  the  Ruthenians  of  Galicia  and  the  Polish  Repub- 
lic. The  late  General  Botha,  a  shrewd  observer,  whose 
valuable  experience  of  political  affairs,  having  been  con- 
fined to  a  country  which  had  not  much  in  common  with 
eastern  Europe,  could  be  of  little  help  to  him  in  solving 
the  complex  problems  with  which  he  was  confronted,  was 
handicapped  from  the  outset.  Unacquainted  with  any 
languages  but  English  and  Dutch,  the  general  had  to  sur- 
mount the  additional  difficulty  of  carrying  on  the  con- 
versation through  an  interpreter.  The  form  it  took  was 
somewhat  as  follows: 

"It  is  the  wish  of  the  Supreme  Council,"  the  chairman 
began,  "that  Poland  should  conclude  an  armistice  with 
the  Ruthenians,  and  under  new  conditions,  the  old  ones 
having  lost  their  force.  ^  Are  you  prepared  to  submit  your 
proposals  ? "  "  This  is  a  military  matter, ' '  replied  the  Polish 
delegate,  "and  should  be  dealt  with  by  experts.  One  of 
our  most  competent  military  authorities  will  arrive  shortly 

^  The  Rumanians,  on  the  contrary,  had  been  ordered  to  keep  to  the  old 
conditions,  although  they,  too,  had  lost  their  force. 

244 


THE   LESSER  STATES 

in  Paris  with  full  powers  to  treat  with  you  on  the  subject. 
In  the  meantime,  I  agree  that  the  old  conditions  are 
obsolete  and  must  be  changed.  I  can  also  mention  three 
provisos  wichout  which  no  armistice  is  possible:  (i)  The 
Poles  must  be  permitted  to  get  into  permanent  contact 
with  Rumania.  That  involves  their  occupation  of  eastern 
Galicia.  The  principal  grounds  for  this  demand  are  that 
our  frontier  includes  that  territory  and  that  the  Ruma- 
nians are  a  law-abiding,  pacific  people  whose  interests 
never  clash  with  ours  and  whose  main  enemy — ^Bolshevism 
— is  also  ours.  (2)  The  Allies  shall  purge  the  Ukrainian 
army  of  the  Bolshevists,  German  and  other  dangerous 
elements  that  now  pervade  it  and  render  peace  impossible. 
(3)  The  Poles  must  have  control  of  the  oil-fields  were  it 
only  because  these  are  now  being  treated  as  military  re- 
sources and  the  Germans  are  receiving  from  Galicia,  which 
contains  the  only  supplies  now  open  to  them,  all  the  oil 
they  require  and  are  giving  the  Ruthenians  munitions  in 
return,  thus  perpetuating  a  continuous  state  of  warfare. 
You  can  realize  that  we  are  unwilling  to  have  our  oil-fields 
employed  to  supply  our  enemies  with  war  material  against 
ourselves."  General  Botha  asked,  "Would  you  be  satis- 
fied if,  instead  of  occupying  all  eastern  Galicia  at  once  in 
order  to  get  into  touch  with  the  Rumanians,  the  latter 
were  to  advance  to  meet  you?"  "Quite.  That  would 
satisfy  us  as  a  provisional  measure."  "But  now  suppose 
that  the  Supreme  Council  rejects  your  three  conditions 
— a  probable  contingency — ^what  course  do  you  propose 
to  take?"  "In  that  case  our  action  would  be  swayed  by 
events,  one  of  which  is  the  hostility  of  the  Ruthenians, 
which  would  necessitate  measures  of  self-defense  and  the 
use  of  our  army.  And  that  would  bring  back  the  whole 
issue  to  the  point  where  it  stands  to-day."  ^     To  the  sug- 

'  That  is  exactly  what  happened  in  the  end.     But  the  delegates  would 
not  believe  it  until  it  became  an  accomplished  fact. 

245 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

gestions  made  by  the  Polish  delegate  that  the  question  of 
the  armistice  be  referred  to  Marshal  Foch,  the  answer 
was  returned  that  the  Marshal's  views  carried  no  authority 
with  the  Supreme  Council. 

General  Botha,  thereupon  adopting  an  emotional  tone, 
said:  "I  have  one  last  appeal  to  make  to  you.  It  be- 
hooves Poland  to  lift  the  question  from  its  present  petty 
surroundings  and  set  it  in  the  larger  frame  of  world  issues. 
What  we  are  aiming  at  is  the  overthrow  of  militarism  and 
the  cessation  of  bloodshed.  As  a  civilized  nation  Poland 
must  surely  see  eye  to  eye  with  the  Supreme  Council  how 
incumbent  it  is  on  the  Allies  to  put  a  stop  to  the  misery 
that  warfare  has  brought  down  on  the  world  and  is  now 
inflicting  on  the  populations  of  Poland  and  eastern  Ga- 
licia."  "Truly,"  replied  the  Polish  delegate,  "and  so 
thoroughly  does  she  realize  it  that  it  is  repugnant  to  her 
to  be  satisfied  with  a  sham  peace,  a  mere  pause  during 
which  a  bloodier  war  may  be  organized.  We  want  a 
settlement  that  really  connotes  peace,  and  our  intimate 
knowledge  of  the  circumstances  enables  us  to  distinguish 
between  that  and  a  mere  truce.  That  is  the  ground  of 
our  insistence." 

"Bear  well  in  mind,"  insisted  the  Boer  general,  "the 
friendly  attitude  of  the  great  Allies  toward  your  country 
at  a  critical  period  of  its  history.  They  restored  it. 
They  meant  and  mean  to  help  it  to  preserve  its  status. 
It  behooves  the  Poles  to  show  their  appreciation  of  this 
friendship  in  a  practical  way  by  deferring  to  their  wishes. 
Everything  they  ordain  is  for  your  good.  Realize  that 
and  carry  out  their  schemes."  "For  their  help  we  are 
and  will  remain  grateful,"  was  the  answer,  "and  we 
will  go  as  far  toward  meeting  their  wishes  as  is  feasible 
without  actually  imperiling  their  contribution  to  the  res- 
toration of  our  state.  But  we  cannot  blink  the  facts 
that  their  views  are  sometimes  mistaken  and  their  power 

246 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

to  realize  them  generally  imaginary.  They  have  made 
numerous  and  costly  mistakes  already,  which  they  now 
frankly  avow.  If  they  persisted  in  their  present  plan 
they  would  be  adding  another  to  the  list.  And  as  to 
their  power  to  help  us  positively,  it  is  nil.  Their  initial 
omission  to  send  a  formidable  military  force  to  Poland 
was  an  irreparable  blunder,  for  it  left  them  without  an 
executive  in  eastern  Europe,  where  they  now  can  help 
none  of  their  protegees  against  their  respective  enemies. 
Poles,  Rumanians,  Jugoslavs  are  all  left  to  themselves. 
From  the  Allies  they  may  expect  inspiriting  telegrams, 
but  little  else.  In  fact,  the  utmost  they  can  do  is  to  issue 
decrees  that  may  or  may  not  be  obeyed.  Examples  are 
many.  They  obtained  for  us  by  the  armistice  the  right 
of  disembarking  troops  at  Dantzig,  and  we  were  un- 
speakably grateful  to  them.  But  they  failed  to  make  the 
Germans  respect  that  right  and  we  had  to  resign  ourselves 
to  abandon  it.  They  ordered  the  Ukrainians  to  cease 
their  numerous  attacks  on  us  and  we  appreciated  their 
thoughtfulness.  But  the  order  was  disobeyed;  we  were 
assailed  and  had  no  one  to  look  to  for  help  but  ourselves. 
Still  we  are  most  thankful  for  all  that  they  could  do. 
But  if  we  concluded  the  armistice  which  you  are  pleading 
for,  this  is  what  would  happen:  we  should  have  the 
Ruthenians  arrayed  against  us  on  one  side  and  the 
Germans  on  the  other.  Now  if  the  Ruthenians  have 
brains,  their  forces  will  attack  us  at  the  same  time  as  those 
of  the  Germans  do.  That  is  sound  tactics.  But  if  their 
strength  is  only  on  paper,  they  will  give  admission  to  the 
Bolsheviki.  That  is  the  twofold  danger  which  you,  in  the 
name  of  the  Great  Powers,  are  unwillingly  endeavoring 
to  conjure  up  against  us.  If  you  admit  its  reality  you 
cannot  blame  our  reluctance  to  incur  it.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  you  regard  the  peril  as  imaginary,  will  you  draw 
the  obvious  consequences  and  pledge  the  word  of  the 

247 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

Great  Powers  that  they  will  give  us  military  assistance 
against  it  should  it  come?" 

If  clear  thinking  and  straightforward  action  had  counted 
for  anything,  the  matter  would  have  been  settled  satis- 
factorily then  and  there.  But  the  Great  Powers  operated 
less  with  argument  than  with  more  forcible  stimuli. 
Holding  the  economic  and  financial  resources  of  the 
world  in  their  hands,  they  sometimes  merely  toyed  with 
reasoning  and  proceeded  to  coerce  where  they  were  unable 
to  convince  or  persuade.  One  day  the  chief  delegate  of 
one  of  the  states  "with  limited  interests"  said  to  me: 
"The  unvarnished  truth  is  that  we  are  being  coerced. 
There  is  no  milder  term  to  signify  the  procedure.  Thus 
we  are  told  that  unless  we  indorse  the  decrees  of  the 
Powers,  whose  interests  are  unlimited  like  their  assurance, 
they  will  withhold  from  us  the  supplies  of  food,  raw  ma- 
terials, and  money  without  which  our  national  existence 
is  inconceivable.  Necessarily  we  must  give  way,  at  any 
rate  for  the  time  being."  Those  words  sum  up  the  re- 
lations of  the  lesser  to  the  greater  Powers. 

In  the  case  of  Poland  the  conversation  ended  thus — 
General  Botha,  addressing  the  delegate,  said:  "If  you 
disregard  the  injunctions  of  the  Big  Four,  who  cannot 
always  lay  before  you  the  grounds  of  their  policy,  you 
run  the  risk  of  being  left  to  your  own  devices.  And  you 
know  what  that  means.  Think  well  before  you  decide!" 
Just  then,  as  it  chanced,  only  a  part  of  General  Haller's 
soldiers  in  France  had  been  transported  to  their  own 
country,^  and  the  Poles  were  in  mortal  terror  lest  the 
work  of  conveying  the  remainder  should  be  interrupted. 
This,  then,  was  an  implicit  appeal  to  which  they  could 
not  turn  a  wholly  deaf  ear.  "Well,  what  is  it  that  the 
Big  Four  ask  of  us?"  inquired  the  delegate.  "The  con- 
clusion of  an  armistice  with  the  Ruthenians,  also  that 

^  About  twciity-livc  thousand  had  ah-cady  left  France 

248 


THE  LESSER   STATES 

Poland — as  one  of  the  newly  created  states — should  allow 
the  free  transit  of  all  the  Allied  goods  through  her  ter- 
ritory." The  delegate  expressed  a  wish  to  be  told  why 
this  measure  should  be  restricted  to  the  newly  made 
states.  The  answer  was  because  it  was  in  the  nature  of 
an  experiment  and  should,  therefore,  not  be  tried  over  too 
large  an  area.  "There  is  also  another  little  undertaking 
which  you  are  requested  to  give — namely,  that  you  will 
accept  and  act  upon  the  future  decisions  of  the  com- 
mission whatever  they  may  be."  "Without  an  inkling 
of  their  character?"  "If  you  have  confidence  in  us  you 
need  have  no  misgivings  as  to  that."  In  spite  of  the  de- 
terrents the  Polish  delegation  at  that  interview  met  all 
these  demands  with  a  firm  non  possiimus.  It  upheld  the 
three  conditions  of  the  armistice,  rejected  the  free  transit 
proposal,  and  demurred  to  the  demand  for  a  promise 
to  bow  to  all  future  decisions  of  a  fallible  commission. 
"When  the  Polish  dispute  with  the  Czechoslovaks  was 
submitted  to  a  commission  we  were  not  asked  in  advance 
to  abide  by  its  decision.  Why  should  a  new  rule  be 
introduced  now^?"  argued  the  Polish  delegates.  And 
there  the  matter  rested  for  a  brief  while. 

But  the  respite  lasted  only  a  few  days,  at  the  expiry  of 
which  an  envoy  called  on  the  mem^bers  of  the  Polish  dele- 
gation and  reopened  the  discussion  on  new  lines.  He 
stated  that  he  spoke  on  behalf  of  the  Big  Four,  of  whose 
views  and  intentions  he  was  the  authorized  exponent. 
And  doubtless  he  thought  he  was.  But  as  a  matter  of 
fact  the  French  government  had  no  cognizance  of  his  visit 
or  mission  or  of  the  conversation  to  which  it  led.  He  pre- 
sented arguments  before  having  recourse  to  deterrents. 
Poland's  situation,  he  said,  called  for  prudence.  Her 
secular  enemy  was  Germany,  with  whom  it  would  be 
difficult,  perhaps  impossible,  ever  to  cultivate  such  terms 
as  would  conciliate  her  permanently.    All  the  more  rea- 

249 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

son,  therefore,  to  deserve  and  win  the  friendship  of  her 
other  neighbors,  in  particular  of  the  Ruthenians.  The 
PoHsh  plenipotentiary  met  the  argument  in  the  usual  way, 
where  upon  the  envoy  exclaimed:  "Well,  to  make  a  long 
story  short,  I  am  here  to  say  that  the  line  of  action  traced 
out  for  your  country  emanates  from  the  inflexible  will  of 
the  Great  Powers.  To  this  you  must  bend.  If  it  should 
lead  to  hostilities  on  the  part  of  your  neighbors  you  could, 
of  course,  rely  on  the  help  of  your  protectors.  Will  this 
not  satisfy  you?"  "If  the  protection  were  real  it  cer- 
tainly would.  But  where  is  it?  Has  it  been  vouchsafed 
at  any  moment  since  the  armistice  ?  Have  the  Allied  gov- 
ernments an  executive  in  eastern  Europe  ?  Are  they  likely 
to  order  their  troops  thither  to  assist  any  of  their  protegees  ? 
And  if  they  issued  such  an  order,  would  it  be  obeyed? 
They  cannot  protect  us,  as  we  know  to  our  cost.  That  is 
why  we  are  prepared,  in  our  interests — also  in  theirs — to 
protect  ourselves." 

This  remarkable  conversation  was  terminated  by  the 
announcement  of  the  penalty  of  disobedience.  "If  you 
persist  in  refusing  the  proposals  I  have  laid  before  you,  I 
am  to  tell  you  that  the  Great  Powers  will  withdraw  their 
aid  from  your  country  and  may  even  feel  it  to  be  their 
duty  to  modify  the  advantageous  status  which  they  had 
decided  to  confer  upon  it."  To  which  this  answer  was 
returned:  "For  the  assistance  we  are  receiving  we  are 
and  will  ever  be  truly  grateful.  But  in  order  to  benefit 
by  it  the  Polish  people  must  be  a  living  organism  and  your 
proposals  tend  to  reduce  us  to  a  state  of  suspended  vitality. 
They  also  place  us  at  the  mercy  of  our  numerous  enemies, 
the  greatest  of  whom  is  Germany." 

But  lucid  intelligence,  backed  by  unflagging  will,  was 
of  no  avail  against  the  threat  of  famine.  The  Poles  had 
to  give  way.  M.  Paderewski  pledged  his  word  to  Messrs. 
Lloyd  George  and  Wilson  that  he  would  have  an  armis- 

25Q 


THE  LESSER   STATES 

tice  concluded  with  the  Ruthenians  of  eastern  Galicia, 
and  the  Duumvirs  riglitly  placed  impHcit  confidence  in 
his  word  as  in  his  moral  rectitude.  They  also  felt  grateful 
to  him  for  having  facilitated  their  arduous  task  by  accept- 
ing the  inevitable.  To  my  knowledge  President  Wilson 
himself  addressed  a  letter  to  him  toward  the  end  of  April, 
thanking  him  cordially  for  the  broad-minded  way  in  which 
he  had  co-operated  with  the  Supreme  Council  in  its  efforts 
to  reconstitute  his  country  on  a  solid  basis.  Probably 
no  other  representative  of  a  state  "with  limited  interests" 
received  such  high  mark  of  approval. 

M.  Paderewski  left  Paris  for  Warsaw,  there  to  win  over 
the  Cabinet.  But  in  Poland,  where  the  authorities  were 
face  to  face  with  the  concrete  elements  of  the  problem,  the 
Premier  found  no  support.  Neither  the  Cabinet  nor  the 
Diet  nor  the  head  of  the  state  found  it  possible  to  redeem 
the  promise  made  in  their  name.  Circumstance  was 
stronger  than  the  human  will.  M.  Paderewski  resigned. 
The  Ruthenians  delivered  a  timely  attack  on  the  Poles, 
who  counter-attacked,  captured  the  towns  of  Styra,  Tar- 
nopol,  Stanislau,  and  occupied  the  enemy  country  right 
up  to  Rumania,  with  which  they  desired  to  be  in  perma- 
nent contact.  Part  of  the  Ruthenian  army  crossed  the 
Czech  frontier  and  was  disarmed,  the  remainder  melted 
away,  and  there  remained  no  enemy  with  whom  to  con- 
clude an  armistice. 

For  the  "Big  Four"  this  turn  of  events  was  a  humilia- 
tion. The  Ruthenian  army,  whose  interests  they  had  so 
taken  to  heart,  had  suddenly  ceased  to  exist,  and  the  future 
danger  which  it  represented  to  Poland  was  seen  to  have 
been  largely  imaginary.  Their  judgment  was  at  fault 
and  their  power  ineffectual.  Against  M.  Paderewski's 
impotence  they  blazed  with  indignation.  He  had  given 
way  to  their  decision  and  promptly  gone  to  Warsaw  to  see 
it  executed,  yet  the  conditions  were  such  that  his  words 

251 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

were  treated  as  sounding  brass  or  a  tinkling  cymbal.  The 
Polish  Premier,  it  is  true,  had  tendered  his  resignation  in 
consequence,  but  it  was  refused — and  even  had  it  been 
accepted,  what  was  the  retirement  of  a  Minister  as  com- 
pared with  the  indignity  put  upon  the  world's  lawgivers 
who  represented  power  and  interests  which  were  alike 
unlimited?  Angry  telegrams  were  flashed  over  the  wires 
from  Paris  to  Warsaw  and  the  Polish  Premier  was  sum- 
moned to  appear  in  Paris  without  delay.  He  duly  re- 
turned, but  no  new  move  was  made.     The  die  was  cast. 

A  noteworthy  event  in  latter-day  Polish  history  ensued 
upon  that  military  victory  over  the  Ruthenians  of  eastern 
Galicia.  The  Ukrainian  ^  Minister  at  Vienna  was  de- 
spatched to  request  the  Poles  to  sign  a  unilateral  treaty 
with  them  after  the  model  of  that  which  was  arranged  by 
the  two  Anglo-Saxon  states  in  favor  of  France.  The 
proposal  was  that  the  Ukraine  government  would  re- 
nounce all  claims  to  eastern  Galicia  and  place  their  troops 
under  the  supreme  command  of  the  Polish  general]  ssimus, 
in  return  for  which  the  Poles  should  undertake  to  protect 
the  Ukrainians  against  all  their  enemies.  This  draft 
agreement,  while  under  consideration  in  Warsaw,  was 
negatived  by  the  Polish  delegates  in  Paris,  who  saw  no 
good  reason  why  their  people  should  bind  themselves  to 
fight  Russia  one  day  for  the  independence  of  the  Ukraine. 
Another  inchoate  state  which  made  an  offer  of  alliance  to 
Poland  was  Esthonia,  but  its  advances  were  declined  on 
similar  grounds.  It  is  manifest,  however,  that  in  the  new 
state  S3^stem  alliances  are  more  in  vogue  than  in  the  old, 
although  they  were  to  have  been  banished  from  it. 

Throughout  all  the  negotiations  that  turned  upon  the 
future  status  and  the  territorial  frontiers  of  Poland  the 

'  The  Ruthenians,  Ukrainians,  and  Little  Russians  are  racially  the  same 
people,  just  as  those  who  speak  German  in  northwestern  Germany,  Dutch 
in  Holiand,  and  Flemish  in  Belgium  are  raciall}^  close  kindred.  The  main 
distinctions  between  the  members  of  each  branch  arc  political. 

252 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

British  Premier  unswervingly  stood  out  against  the 
PoHsh  claims,  just  as  the  President  of  the  United  States 
inflexibly  countered  those  of  Italy,  and  both  united  to 
negative  those  of  the  Rumanians.  Whatever  one  may 
think  of  the  merits  of  these  controversies — and  various 
opinions  have  been  put  forward  with  obvious  sincerity — • 
there  can  be  but  one  judgment  as  to  the  spirit  in  which 
they  were  conducted.  It  was  a  dictatorial  spirit,  which 
was  intolerant  not  merely  of  opposition,  but  of  enlightened 
and  constructive  criticism.  To  the  representatives  of  the 
countries  concerned  it  seemed  made  up  of  bitter  prejudice 
and  fierce  partizanship,  imbibed,  it  was  affirmed,  from 
those  unseen  sources  whence  powerful  and,  it  was  thought, 
noxious  currents  flowed  continuously  tow^ard  the  Confer- 
ence. For  none  of  the  afl^ronted  delegates  credited  with 
a  knowledge  of  the  subject  either  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  who 
had  tiever  heard  of  Teschen,  or  Mr.  Wilson,  whose  survey 
of  Corsican  politics  was  said  to  be  so  defective.  And  yet 
to  the  activity  of  men  engaged  like  these  in  settling  af- 
fairs of  unprecedented  magnitude  it  w^oiild  be  unfair  to 
appty  the  ordinary  tests  of  technical  fastidiousness.  Their 
position  as  trustees  of  the  world's  greatest  states,  even 
though  they  lacked  political  imagination,  knowledge,  and 
experience,  entitled  them  to  the  high  consideration  which 
they  generally  received.  But  it  could  not  be  expected  to 
dazzle  to  blindness  the  eyes  of  superior  men — and  the 
delegates  of  the  lesser  states,  Venizelos,  Dmowski,  and 
Benes,  were  undoubtedly  superior  in  most  of  the  attributes 
of  statesmanship.  Yet  they  were  frequently  snubbed  and 
each  one  made  to  feel  that  he  was  the  fifth  wheel  in  the 
chariot  of  the  Conference.  No  sacred  fame,  says  Goethe, 
requires  us  to  submit  to  contempt,  and  they  winced 
under  it.  The  Big  Three  lacked  the  happy  way  of  doing 
things  which  goes  with  diplomatic  tact  and  engaging 
manners,  and  the  consequence  was  that  not  only  were 

253 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

their  arguments  mistrusted,  but  even  their  good  faith 
was,  as  we  saw,  momentarily  subjected  to  doubt.  "Bitter 
prejudice,  furious  antipathy"  were  freely  predicated  of  the 
two  Anglo-Saxon  statesmen,  who  were  rashly  accused  of 
attempting  by  circuitous  methods  to  deprive  France  of 
her  new  Slav  ally  in  eastern  Europe.  Sweeping  recrimina- 
tions of  this  character  deserve  notice  only  as  indicating 
the  spirit  of  discord — not  to  use  a  stronger  term — pre- 
vailing at  a  Conference  which  was  professedly  endeavor- 
ing to  knit  together  the  peoples  of  the  planet  in  an 
organized  society  of  good-fellowship. 

The  delegates  of  the  lesser  states,  to  whom  one  should 
not  look  for  impartial  judgments,  formulated  some  queer 
theories  to  explain  the  Allies'  unavowed  policy  and  re- 
vealed a  frame  of  mind  in  no  wise  conducive  to  the  at- 
tainment of  the  ostensible  ends  of  the  Conference.  One 
delegate  said  to  me :  "I  have  no  longer  the  faintest  ^oubt 
that  the  firm  purpose  of  the  'Big  Two'  is  the  establish- 
ment of  the  hegemony  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  peoples,  which 
in  the  fullness  of  time  may  be  transformed  into  the 
hegemony  of  the  United  States  of  North  America.  Even 
France  is  in  some  respects  their  handmaid.  Already  she  is 
bound  to  them  indissolubiy.  She  is  admittedly  unable  to 
hold  her  own  without  their  protection.  She  will  become 
more  dependent  on  them  as  the  years  pass  and  Germany, 
having  put  her  house  in  order,  regains  her  economic  pre- 
ponderance on  the  Continent.  This  decline  is  due  to  the 
operation  of  a  natural  law  which  diplomacy  may  retard 
but  cannot  hinder.  Numbers  will  count  in  the  future, 
and  then  France's  r61e  will  be  reduced.  For  this  reason 
it  is  her  interest  that  her  new  allies  in  eastern  Europe 
should  be  equipped  with  all  the  means  of  growing  and 
keeping  strong  instead  of  being  held  in  the  leading-strings 
of  the  overlords.  But  perhaps  this  tutelage  is  reckoned 
one  of  those  means?" 

254 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

Against  Britain  in  especial  the  Poles,  as  we  saw,  were 
wroth.  They  complained  that  whenever  they  advanced 
a  claim  they  found  her  first  delegate  on  their  path  barring 
their  passage,  and  if  Mr.  Wilson  chanced  to  be  with  them 
the  British  Premier  set  himself  to  convert  him  to  his  way 
of  thinking  or  voting.  Thus  it  was  against  IVIr.  Lloyd 
George  that  the  eastern  Galician  problem  had  had  to  be 
fought  at  every  stage.  At  the  outset  the  British  Premier 
refused  Galicia  to  Poland  categorically  and  purposed 
making  it  an  entirely  separate  state  under  the  League 
of  Nations.  This  design,  of  which  he  made  no  secret, 
inspired  the  insistence  with  which  the  armistice  with  the 
Ruthenians  of  Galicia  was  pressed.  The  Polish  delegates, 
one  of  them  a  man  of  incisive  speech,  left  no  stone  un- 
turned to  thwart  that  part  of  the  English  scheme,  and  they 
finally  succeeded.  But  their  opponents  contrived  to  drop 
a  spoonful  of  tar  in  Poland's  pot  of  honey  by  ordering  a 
plebiscite  to  take  place  in  eastern  Galicia  within  ten  or  fif- 
teen years.  Then  came  the  question  of  the  Galician  Consti- 
tution. The  Poles  proposed  to  confer  on  the  Ruthenians 
a  restricted  measure  of  home  rule  with  authority  to  ar- 
range in  their  own  way  educational  and  religious  matters, 
local  communications,  and  the  means  of  encouraging 
industry  and  agriculture,  besides  giving  them  a  pro- 
portionate number  of  seats  in  the  state  legislature  in 
Warsaw.  But  again  the  British  delegates — experienced  in 
problems  of  home  rule — expressed  their  dissatisfaction  and 
insisted  on  a  parliament  or  diet  for  the  Ukraine  invested 
with  considerable  authority  over  the  affairs  of  the  prov- 
ince. The  Poles  next  announced  their  intention  to  have  a 
governor  of  eastern  Galicia  appointed  by  the  President 
of  the  Polish  Republic,  w4th  a  council  to  advise  him. 
The  British  again  amended  the  proposal  and  asked  that 
the  governor  should  be  responsible  to  the  Galician  parlia- 
ment, but  to  this  the  Poles  demurred  emphatically,  and 

255 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

finally  it  was  settled  that  only  the  members  of  his  council 
should  be  responsible  to  the  provincial  legislature.  The 
Poles  having  suggested  that  military  conscription  should 
be  applied  to  eastern  Galicia  on  the  same  terms  as  to  the 
rest  of  Poland,  the  British  once  more  joiaed  issue  with 
them  and  demanded  that  no  troops  whatever  should  be 
levied  in  the  province.  The  upshot  of  this  dispute  was 
that  after  much  wrangHng  the  British  Commission  gave 
way  to  the  Poles,  but  made  it  a  condition  that  the  troops 
should  not  be  employed  outside  the  province.  To  this 
the  Poles  made  answer  that  the  massing  of  so  many 
soldiers  on  the  Rumanian  frontier  might  reasonably  be 
objected  to  by  the  Rumanians — and  so  the  amoebean 
word-game  went  on  in  the  subcommission.  In  a  word, 
when  dealing  with  the  eastern  Galician  problem,  Mr. 
Lloyd  George  played  the  part  of  an  ardent  champion 
of  complete  home  rule. 

To  sum  up,  the  Conference  linked  eastern  Galicia  with 
Poland,  but  made  the  bonds  extremely  tenuous,  so  that 
they  might  be  severed  at  any  moment  without  involving 
profound  changes  in  either  country,  and  by  this  arrange- 
ment, which  introduced  the  provisional  into  the  definitive, 
a  broad  field  of  operations  was  allotted  to  political  agita- 
tion and  revolt  was  encouraged  to  rear  its  crest. 

The  province  of  Upper  Silesia  was  asked  for  on  grounds 
which  the  Poles,  at  any  rate,  thought  convincing.  But 
Mr.  Lloyd  George,  it  was  said,  declared  them  insufficient. 
The  subject  was  thrashed  out  one  day  in  June  when  the 
Polish  delegates  were  summoned  before  their  all-powerful 
colleagues  to  be  told  of  certain  alterations  that  had  been 
recently  introduced  into  the  Treaty  which  concerned  them 
to  know.     They  appeared  before  the  Council  of  Five.^ 


1  The  Messrs.  Wilson,  George,  Clemenccau,  Barons  Makino  and  Son- 
nino.  M.  Clemenceau  was  the  nominal  chairman,  but  in  reality  it  was 
President  Wilson  who  conducted  the  proceedings. 

256 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

President  Wilson,  addressing  the  two  delegates,  spoke 
approximately  as  follows:  "You  claim  Silesia  on  the 
ground  that  its  inhabitants  are  Poles  and  we  have 
given  your  demand  careful  consideration.  But  the 
Germans  tell  us  that  the  inhabitants,  although  Polish 
by  race,  wish  to  remain  under  German  rule  as  heretofore. 
That  is  a  strong  objection  if  founded  on  fact.  At  present 
we  are  unable  to  answer  it.  In  fact,  nobody  can  answer 
it  with  finality  but  the  inhabitants  themselves.  There- 
fore we  must  order  a  plebiscite  among  them."  One  of  the 
Polish  delegates  remarked :  "If  you  had  put  the  question 
to  the  inhabitants  fifty  years  ago  they  would  have  ex- 
pressed their  wish  to  remain  with  the  Germans  because 
at  that  time  they  were  profoundly  ignorant  and  their 
national  sentiment  was  dormant.  Now  it  is  otherwise. 
For  since  then  many  of  them  have  been  educated,  and 
the  majority  are  alive  to  the  issue  and  will  therefore 
declare  for  Poland.  And  if  any  section  of  the  territory 
should  still  prefer  German  sway  to  Polish  and  their  district 
in  consequence  of  your  plebiscite  becomes  German,  the 
process  of  enlightenment  which  has  already  made  such 
headway  will  none  the  less  go  on,  and  their  children, 
conscious  of  their  loss,  will  anathematize  their  fathers 
for  having  inflicted  it.     And  then  there  will  be  trouble." 

Mr.  Wilson  retorted:  "You  are  assuming  more  than 
is  meet.  The  frontiers  which  we  are  tracing  are  provi- 
sional, not  final.  That  is  a  consideration  which  ought 
to  weigh  with  you.  Besides,  the  League  of  Nations  will 
intervene  to  improve  what  is  imperfect."  "O  League 
of  Nations,  what  blunders  are  committed  in  thy  name!" 
the  delegate  may  have  muttered  to  himself  as  he  listened 
to  the  words  meant  to  comfort  him  and  his  countrymen. 

Much  might  have  been  urged  against  this  proffered 
solace  if  the  delegates  had  been  in  a  captious  mood. 
The  League  of  Nations  had  as  yet  no  existence.     If  its 

257 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

will,  intelligence,  and  power  could  indeed  be  reckoned 
upon  with  such  confidence,  how  had  it  come  to  pass  that 
its  creators,  Britain  and  the  United  States,  deemed  them 
dubious  enough  to  call  for  a  reinforcement  in  the  shape 
of  a  formal  alliance  for  the  protection  of  France  ?  If  this 
precautionary  measure,  which  shatters  the  whole  Wil- 
sonian  system,  was  indispensable  to  one  Ally  it  was  at 
least  equally  indispensable  to  another.  And  in  the  case 
of  Poland  it  was  more  urgent  than  in  the  case  of  France, 
because  if  Germany  were  again  to  scheme  a  war  of  con- 
quest the  probability  is  infinitesimal  that  she  would  invade 
Belgium  or  move  forward  on  the  western  front.  The 
line  of  least  resistance,  which  is  Poland,  would  prove 
incomparably  more  attractive.  And  then  ?  The  absence 
of  Allied  troops  in  eastern  Europe  was  one  of  the  principal 
causes  of  the  wars,  tumults,  and  chaotic  confusion  that 
had  made  nervous  people  tremble  for  the  fate  of  civiliza- 
tion in  the  interval  between  the  conclusion  of  the  armistice 
and  the  ratification  of  the  Treaty.  In  the  future  the 
absence  of  strongly  situated  Allies  there,  if  Germany  were 
to  begin  a  fresh  war,  would  be  more  fatal  still,  and  the 
Polish  state  might  conceivably  disappear  before  military 
aid  from  the  Allied  governments  could  reach  it.  Why 
should  the  safety  of  Poland  and  to  some  extent  the 
security  of  Europe  be  made  to  depend  upon  what  is  at 
best  a  gambler's  throw? 

But  no  counter-objections  were  offered.  On  the  con- 
trary, M.  Paderewski  uttered  the  soft  answer  that  turneth 
away  wrath.  He  profoundly  regretted  the  decision  of 
the  lawgivers,  but,  recognizing  that  it  was  immutable, 
bowed  to  it  in  the  name  of  his  country.  He  knew,  he  said, 
that  the  delegates  were  animated  by  very  friendly  feelings 
toward  his  country  and  he  thanked  them  for  their  help. 
M.  Paderewski's  colleague,  the  less  malleable  M.  Dmow- 
ski,  is  reported  to  have  said:  "It  is  my  desire  to  be  quite 

25S 


THE   LESSER   STATES 

sincere  with  you,  gentlemen.  Therefore  I  venture  to 
submit  that  while  you  profess  to  have  settled  the  matter 
on  principle,  you  have  not  carried  out  that  principle 
thoroughly.  Doubtless  by  inadvertence.  Thus  there 
are  places  inhabited  by  a  large  majority  of  Poles  which 
you  have  allotted  to  Germany  on  the  ground  that  they  are 
inhabited  by  Germans.  That  is  inconsistent."  At  this 
Mr.  Lloyd  George  jumped  up  from  his  place  and  asked: 
"Can  you  name  any  such  places?"  M.  Dmowski  gave 
several  names.  "Point  them  out  to  me  on  the  map," 
insisted  the  British  Premier.  They  were  pointed  out 
on  the  map.  Twice  President  Wilson  asked  the  delegate 
to  spell  the  name  Bomst  for  him.^  Mr.  Lloyd  George 
then  said:  "Well,  those  are  oversights  that  can  be 
rectified."  "Oh  yes,"  added  Mr.  Wilson,  "we  will  see 
to  that."  ^  M.  Dmowski  also  questioned  the  President 
about  the  plebiscite,  and  under  whose  auspices  the  voting 
would  take  place,  and  was  told  that  there  would  be  an 
Inter-Allied  administration  to  superintend  the  arrange- 
ments and  insure  perfect  freedom  of  voting.  "Through 
what  agency  will  that  administration  work  ?  Is  it  through 
the  officials?"  "Evidently,"  Mr.  Wilson  answered. 
"You  are  doubtless  aware  that  they  are  Germans?" 
"Yes.  But  the  administration  will  possess  the  right  to 
dismiss  those  who  prove  unworthy  of  their  confidence." 
"Don't  you  think,"  insisted  M.  Dmowski,  "that  it  would 
be  fairer  to  withdraw  one  half  of  the  German  bureaucrats 
and  give  their  places  to  Poles?"  To  which  the  President 
replied :  '  *  The  administration  will  be  thoroughly  impartial 
and  will  adopt  all  suitable  measures  to  render  the  voting 
free."     There  the  matter  ended. 

The   two  potentates  in  council,   tackling  the  future 


^  Bomst  is  a  canton  in  the  former  Pro\ance  (Regierungs-besirk)  of  Posen, 
with  about  sixty  thousand  inhabitants. 
^  Minutes  of  this  conversation  exist. 
18  2  59 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

status  of  Lithuania,  settled  it  in  an  offhand  and  singular 
fashion  which  at  any  rate  bespoke  their  good  intentions. 
The  principle  of  self-determination,  or  what  was  face- 
tiously termed  the  Balkanization  of  Europe,  was  at  first 
applied  to  that  territory  and  a  semi-independent  state 
created  in  petto  which  was  to  contain  eight  million  inhabi- 
tants and  be  linked  with  Poland.  Certain  obstacles 
were  soon  afterward  encountered  which  had  not  been 
foreseen.  One  was  that  all  the  Lithuanians  number  only 
two  millions,  or  say  at  the  most  two  millions  and  one 
hundred  thousand.  Out  of  these  even  the  Supreme 
Council  could  not  make  eight  millions.  In  Lithuania 
there  are  two  and  a  half  million  Poles,  one  and  a  half 
million  Jews,  and  the  remainder  are  White  Russians.^ 
It  was  recognized  that  a  community  consisting  of  such 
disparate  elements,  situated  where  it  now  is,  could  hardly 
live  and  strive  as  an  independent  state.  The  Lithuanian 
Jews,  however,  were  of  a  different  way  of  thinking,  and 
they  opposed  the  Polish  claims  with  a  degree  of  stead- 
fastness and  animation  which  wounded  Poland's  national 
pride  and  left  rankling  sores  behind. 

It  is  worth  noting  that  the  representatives  of  Russia, 
who  are  supposed  to  clutch  convulsively  at  all  the  states 
which  once  formed  part  of  the  Tsardom,  displayed  a  de- 
gree of  political  detachment  in  respect  of  Lithuania  which 
came  as  a  pleasant  surprise  to  many.  The  Russian  Am- 
bassador in  Paris,  M.  Maklakoff,  in  a  remarkable  address 
before  a  learned  assembly  -  in  the  French  capital,  an- 
nounced that  Russia  was  henceforward  disinterested  in 
the  status  of  Lithuania. 


1  An  interesting  Russian  tribe,  dwelling  chiefly  In  the  provinces  of  Minsk 
and  Grodno  (excepting  the  extreme  south),  a  small  part  of  Suvalki,  Vilna 
(excepting  the  northwest  corner),  the  entire  provinces  of  Vitebsk  and 
Moghileff,  the  west  part  of  Smolensk,  and  a  few  districts  of  Tshernigoff. 

2  La  Societe  des  Etudes  Politiques.  The  discourse  in  question  was 
printed  and  published. 

260 


THE  LESSER  STATES 

That  the  Poles  were  minded  to  deal  very  liberally  with 
the  Lithuanians  became  evident  during  the  Conference. 
General  Pilsudski,  on  his  own  initiative,  visited  Vilna  and 
issued  a  proclamation  to  the  Lithuanians  announcing  that 
elections  would  be  held,  and  asking  them  to  make  known 
their  desires,  which  would  be  realized  by  the  Warsaw 
government.  One  of  the  many  curious  documents  of  the 
Conference  is  an  official  missive  signed  by  the  General 
Secretary,  M.  Dutasta,  and  addressed  to  the  first  Polish 
delegate,  exhorting  him  to  induce  his  government  to  come 
to  terms  with  the  Lithuanian  government,  as  behooves 
two  neighboring  states.  Unluckily  for  the  soundness  of 
that  counsel  there  was  no  recognized  Lithuanian  state  or 
Lithuanian  government  to  come  to  terms  with. 

As  has  been  often  enough  pointed  out,  the  actions  and 
utterances  of  the  two  world-menders  were  so  infelicitous 
as  to  lend  color  to  the  belief — shared  by  the  representa- 
tives of  a  number  of  humiliated  nations — that  greed  of 
new  markets  was  at  the  bottom  of  what  purported  to  be 
a  policy  of  pure  humanitarianism.  Some  of  the  delegates 
were  currently  supposed  to  be  the  unwitting  instruments 
of  elusive  capitalistic  influences.  Possibly  they  would 
have  been  astonished  were  they  told  this:  Great  Britain 
was  suspected  of  working  for  complete  control  of  the  Bal- 
tic and  its  seaboard  in  order  to  oust  the  Germans  from  the 
markets  of  that  territory  and  to  have  potent  levers  for 
action  in  Poland,  Germany,  and  Russia.  The  achieve- 
ment of  that  end  would  mean  command  of  the  Baltic, 
which  had  theretofore  been  a  German  lake.^  It  would  also 
entail,  it  was  said,  the  separation  of  Dantzig  from  Poland, 
and  the  attraction  of  the  Finns,  Esthonians,  Letts,  and 
Lithuanians  from  Germany's  orbit  into  that  of  Great 

1  In  Germany  and  Russia  the  same  view  was  generally  taken  of  the 
motives  that  actuated  the  policy  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  peoples.  The  most 
elaborate  attempt  to  demonstrate  its  correctness  was  made  by  Cr.  Bunke, 
in  The  Dantziger  Neueste  Nachrichten,  already  mentioned  in  this  book, 

261 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

Britain.  In  vain  the  friends  of  the  delegates  declared  that 
economic  interests  were  not  the  mainspring  of  their  de- 
liberate action  and  that  nothing  was  further  from  their 
intention  than  to  angle  for  a  mandate  for  those  countries. 
The  conviction  was  deep-rooted  in  the  minds  of  many 
that  each  of  the  Great  Powers  was  playing  for  its  own 
hand.  That  there  was  some  apparent  foundation  for  this 
assumption  cannot,  as  we  saw,  be  gainsaid.  Widely  and 
unfavorably  commented  was  the  circumstance  that  in  the 
heat  of  those  discussions  at  the  Conference  a  man  of  con- 
fidence of  the  AlHes  put  this  significant  and  impolitic 
question  to  one  of  the  plenipotentiaries:  "How  would 
you  take  it  if  England  were  to  receive  a  mandate  for 
Lithuania?" 

"The  Great  Powers,"  observed  the  most  outspoken  of 
the  delegates  of  the  lesser  states,  "are  bandits,  but  as 
their  operations  are  on  a  large  scale  they  are  entitled  to 
another  and  more  courteous  name.  Their  gaze  is  fasci- 
nated by  markets,  concessions,  monopolies.  They  are 
now  making  preparations  for  a  great  haul.  At  this 
politicians  cannot  affect  to  be  scandalized.  For  it  has 
never  been  otherwise  since  men  came  together  in  ordered 
communities.  But  what  is  irritating  and  repellent  is  the 
perfume  of  altruism  and  philanthropy  which  permeates 
this  decomposition.  We  are  told  that  already  they  are 
purchasing  the  wharves  of  Dantzig,  making  ready  for 
'big  deals'  in  Libau,  Riga,  and  Reval,  founding  a  bank  in 
Klagenfurt  and  negotiating  for  oil-wells  in  Rumania.  Al- 
though deeply  immersed  in  the  ethics  of  politics,  they  have 
not  lost  sight  of  the  worldly  goods  to  be  picked  up  and 
appropriated  on  the  wearisome  journey  toward  ideal  goals. 
The  atmosphere  they  have  thus  renewed  is  peculiarly 
favorable  to  the  growth  of  cant,  and  tends  to  accelerate 
the  process  of  moral  and  social  dissolution.  And  the 
effects  of  this  rnephitic  air  may  proye  more  durable  than 

262 


THE  LESSER   STATES 

the  contribution  of  its  creators  to  the  poHtical  reorganiza- 
tion of  Europe.  If  we  compare  the  high  functions  which 
they  might  have  fulfilled  in  relation  to  the  vast  needs  and 
the  unprecedented  tendencies  of  the  new  age  with  those 
which  they  have  unwittingly  and  deliberately  perfoiTned 
as  sophists  of  sentimental  morality  and  destroyers  of  the 
wheat  together  with  the  tares,  we  shall  have  to  deplore 
one  of  the  rarest  opportunities  missed  beyond  retrieve." 

In  this  criticism  there  is  a  kernel  of  truth.  The  ethico- 
social  currents  to  which  the  war  gave  rise  had  a  profoundly 
moral  aspect,  and  if  rightly  canalized  might  have  fertilized 
many  lands  and  have  led  to  a  new  and  healthy  state- 
system.  One  indispensable  condition,  however,  was  that 
the  peoples  of  the  world  should  themselves  be  directly 
interested  in  the  process,  that  they  should  be  consulted 
and  listened  to,  and  helped  or  propelled  into  new  grooves 
of  thought  and  action.  Instead  of  that  the  delegates  con- 
tented themselves  with  giving  new  names  to  old  institu- 
tions and  tendencies  which  stood  condemned,  and  with 
teaching  lawless  disrespect  for  every  check  and  restraint 
except  such  as  they  chose  to  acknowledge.  They  were 
powerful  advocates  for  right  and  justice,  democracy  and 
publicity,  but  their  definitions  of  these  abstract  nouns 
made  plain-speaking  people  gasp.  Self-interest  and  mate- 
rial power  were  the  idols  which  they  set  themselves  to  pull 
down,  but  the  deities  which  they  put  in  their  places  wore 
the  same  familiar  looks  as  the  idols,  only  they  were  differ- 
ently colored. 


VII 

Poland's  outlook  in  the  future 

CASTING  a  parting  glance  at  Poland  as  she  looked 
when  emerging  from  the  Conference  in  the  leading- 
strings  of  the  Great  Western  Powers,  after  having  es- 
caped from  the  Bolshevist  dangers  that  compassed  her 
round,  we  behold  her  about  to  begin  her  national  existence 
as  a  semi-independent  nation,  beset  with  enemies  domestic 
and  foreign.  For  it  would  be  an  abuse  of  terms  to  affirm 
that  Poland,  or,  indeed,  any  of  the  lesser  states,  is  fully 
independent  in  the  old  sense  of  the  word.  The  special 
treaty  imposed  on  her  by  the  Great  Two  obliges  her  to 
accord  free  transit  to  Allied  goods  and  certain  privileges 
to  her  Jewish  and  other  minorities;  to  accept  the  super- 
vision and  intervention  of  the  League  of  Nations,  which 
the  Poles  contend  means  in  their  case  an  Anglo-Saxon- 
Jewish  association;  and,  at  the  outset,  at  any  rate,  to 
recognize  the  French  generalissimus  as  the  supreme  com- 
mander of  her  troops. 

Poland's  frontiers  and  general  status  ought,  if  the 
scheme  of  her  French  protectors  had  been  executed,  to 
have  been  accommodated  to  the  peculiar  functions 
which  they  destined  her  to  fill  in  New  Europe.  France's 
plan  was  to  make  of  Poland  a  wall  between  Germany 
and  Russia.  The  marked  tendency  of  the  other  two 
Conference  leaders  was  to  transform  it  into  a  bridge 
between  those  two  countries.  And  the  outcome  of  the 
compromise  between  them  has  been  to  construct  some- 
thing which,  without  being  either,  combines  all  the  dis- 

264 


POLAND'S  OUTLOOK  IN  THE  FUTURE 

advantages  of  both.  It  is  a  bridge  for  Germany  and  a 
wall  for  Bolshevist  Russia.  That  is  the  verdict  of  a 
large  number  of  Poles.  Although  the  Europe  of  the 
future  is  to  be  a  pacific  and  ethically  constituted  com- 
munity, whose  members  will  have  their  disputes  and 
quarrels  with  one  another  settled  by  arbitration  courts 
and  other  conciliatory  tribunals,  war  and  efficient  prepa- 
ration for  it  were  none  the  less  uppermost  in  the  minds  of 
the  circumspect  lawgivers.  Hence  the  Anglo-Saxon 
agreement  to  defend  France  against  unprovoked  aggres- 
sion. Hence,  too,  the  solicitude  displayed  by  the  French 
to  have  the  Polish  state,  which  is  to  be  their  mainstay  in 
eastern  Europe,  equipped  with  every  territorial  and  other 
guaranty  necessary  to  qualify  it  for  the  duties.  But 
what  the  French  government  contrived  to  obtain  for 
itself  it  failed  to  secure  for  its  new  Slav  ally.  Nay, 
oddly  enough  it  voted  with  the  Anglo-Saxon  delegates  for 
keeping  all  the  lesser  states  under  the  tutelage  of  the 
League.  The  Duumvirs,  having  made  the  requisite  con- 
cessions to  France,  were  resolved  in  Poland's  case  to  avoid 
a  further  recoil  toward  the  condemned  forms  of  the  old 
system  of  equilibrium.  Hence  the  various  plebiscites, 
home-rule  charters,  subdivisions  of  territory,  and  other 
evidences  of  a  struggle  for  reform  along  the  line  of  least 
resistance,  as  though  in  the  unavoidable  future  conflict 
between  timidly  propounded  theories  and  politico-social 
forces  the  former  had  any  serious  chance  of  surviving.  In 
politics,  as  in  coinage,  it  is  the  debased  metal  that  ousts 
the  gold  from  circulation. 

Poland's  situation  is  difficult;  some  people  would  call 
it  precarious.  She  is  surrounded  by  potential  enemies 
abroad  and  at  home — Germans,  Russians,  Ukrainians, 
Magyars,  and  Jews.  A  considerable  number  of  Teutons 
are  incorporated  in  her  republic  to-day,  and  also  a  large 
number  of  people  of  Russian  race.     Now,  Russia  and 

265 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

Germany,  even  if  they  renounce  all  designs  of  reconquering 
the  territory  which  they  misruled  for  such  a  long  span  of 
time,  may  feel  tempted  one  day  to  recover  their  own 
kindred,  and  what  they  consider  to  be  their  own  territory. 
And  irredentism  is  one  of  the  worst  political  plagues  for 
all  the  three  parties  who  usually  suiter  from  it.  If  then 
Germany  and  Russia  were  to  combine  and  attack  Poland, 
the  consequences  would  be  serious.  That  democratic  Ger- 
many would  risk  such  a  wild  adventuie  in  the  near  future 
is  inconceivable.  But  history  operates  with  long  periods 
of  time,  and  it  behooves  statesmanship  to  do  likewise. 

A  Polish  statesman  would  start  from  the  assumption  that, 
as  Russia  and  Germany  have  for  the  time  being  ceased 
to  be  efficient  members  of  the  European  state-system, 
a  good  understanding  may  be  come  to  with  both  of  them, 
and  a  close  intimacy  cultivated  with  one.  Resourceful- 
ness and  statecraft  will  be  requisite  to  this  consum^mation. 
For  some  Russians  are  still  uncompromising,  and  would 
fain  take  back  a  part  of  what  the  revolutionary  wave 
swept  out  of  their  country's  grasp,  but  circumstance 
bids  fair  to  set  free  a  potent  moderating  force  in  the  near 
future.  Already  it  is  incarnated  in  statesmen  of  the  new 
type.  In  this  connection  it  is  instructive  to  pass  in  review 
the  secret  maneuvers  by  which  the  recognition  of  Poland's 
independence  was,  so  to  say,  extorted  from  a  Russian 
Minister,  who  was  reputed  at  the  time  to  be  a  Democrat 
of  the  Democrats.  As  some  governments  have  now 
become  champions  of  publicity,  I  venture  to  hope  that  this 
disclosure  will  be  as  helpful  to  those  whom  it  concerns 
as  was  the  systematic  suppression  of  my  articles  and 
telegrams  during  the  space  of  four  years.  ^ 

^  Most  of  my  articles  written  during  the  last  half  of  the  war,  and  some 
during  the  armistice,  were  held  back  on  grounds  which  were  presumably 
patriotic.  I  share  with  those  who  were  instrumental  in  keeping  them 
from  the  public  the  moral  portion  of  the  reward  which  consists  in  the 
assumption  that  some  high  purpose  was  served  by  the  suppression. 

266 


POLAND'S  OUTLOOK   IN   THE   FUTURE 

On  the  outbreak  of  the  Russian  revolution  Poland's 
representatives  in  Britain,  who  had  been  ceaselessly 
working  for  the  restoration  of  their  country,  approached 
the  British  government  with  a  request  that  the  oppor- 
tunity should  be  utilized  at  once,  and  the  new  democratic 
Cabinet  in  Petrogi-ad  requested  to  issue  a  proclamation 
recognizing  the  independence  of  Poland.  The  reasons 
for  this  move  having  been  propounded  in  detail,  orally 
and  in  writing,  the  Foreign  Secretary  despatched  at  once 
a  telegram  to  the  Ambassador  in  the  Russian  capital, 
instructing  him  to  lay  the  matter  before  the  Russian 
Foreign  Minister  and  urge  him  to  lose  no  time  in  establish- 
ing the  claim  of  the  Polish  provisional  government  to  the 
sympathies  of  the  world,  and  the  redress  of  its  wrongs 
by  Russia.  Sir  George  Buchanan  called  on  Professor 
Milyukoff,  then  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  and  President 
of  the  Constitutional  Democratic  party,  and  propounded 
to  him  the  views  of  the  British  government,  which  agreed 
with  those  of  France  and  Italy,  and  hoped  he  would  see 
his  way  to  profit  by  the  opportunity.  The  answer  was 
prompt  and  definite,  and  within  forty-eight  hours  of  Mr. 
Balfour's  despatch  it  reached  the  Foreign  Office.  The 
gist  of  it  was  that  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  re- 
gretted his  inability  to  deal  with  the  problem  at  that 
conjuncture,  owing  to  its  great  complexity  and  various 
bearings,  and  also  because  of  his  apprehension  that  the 
Poles  would  demand  the  incorporation  of  Russian  lands 
in  their  reconstituted  state.  From  this  answer  many 
conclusions  might  fairly  be  drawn  respecting  persons, 
parties,  and  principles  on  the  surface  of  revolutionary 
Russia.  But  to  his  credit,  Mr.  Balfour  did  not  accept  it 
as  final.  He  again  telegraphed  to  the  British  Ambassador, 
instructing  him  to  insist  upon  the  recognition  of  Poland, 
as  the  matter  was  urgent,  and  to  exhort  the  provisional 
government  to  give  in  good  time  the  desired  proof  of  the 

267 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

democratic  faith  that  is  to  save  Russia.  Sir  George 
Buchanan  accompHshed  the  task  expeditiously.  M.  Milyu- 
koff  gave  way,  drafted  and  issued  the  proclamation. 
Mr.  Bonar  Law  welcomed  it  in  a  felicitous  speech  in  the 
House  of  Commons/  and  the  Entente  press  lauded  to  the 
skies  the  generous  spirit  of  the  new  Russian  government. 
The  Russian  people  and  their  leaders  have  traveled  far 
since  then,  and  have  rid  themselves  of  much  useless 
ballast. 

As  Slavs  the  Poles  might  have  been  naturally  pre- 
disposed to  live  in  amity  with  the  Russians,  were  it  not 
for  the  specter  of  the  past  that  stands  between  them. 
But  now  that  Russia  is  a  democracy  in  fact  as  well  as  in 
name,  this  is  much  more  feasible  than  it  ever  was  before, 
and  it  is  also  indispensable  to  the  Russians.  In  the 
first  place,  it  is  possible  that  Poland  may  have  consolidated 
her  forces  before  her  mighty  neighbor  has  recovered  the 
status  corresponding  to  her  numbers  and  resources.  If 
the  present  estimates  are  correct,  and  the  frontiers,  when 
definitely  traced,  leave  Poland  a  republic  with  some  thirty- 
five  million  people,  such  is  her  extraordinary  birth-rate 
and  the  territorial  scope  it  has  for  development,  that 
in  the  not  far  distant  future  her  population  may  exceed 
that  of  France.  Assuming  for  the  sake  of  argument  that 
armies  and  other  national  defenses  will  count  in  politics 
as  much  as  hitherto,  Poland's  specific  weight  will  then  be 
considerable.  She  will  have  become  not  indeed  a  world 
power  (to-day  there  are  only  two  such),  but  a  European 
Great  Power  whose  friendship  will  be  well  worth  acquiring. 

In  the  meanwhile  Polish  statesmen  —  the  Poles  have 
one  in  Roman  Dmowski — may  strike  up  a  friendly  accord 
with  Russia,  abandoning  definitely  and  formally  all 
claims  to  so-called  historic  Poland,  disinteresting  them- 
selves in  all  the  Baltic  problems  which  concern  Russia  so 

»  On  April  26,  1917. 

268 


POLAND'S  OUTLOOK   IN  THE  FUTURE 

closely,  and  envisaging  the  Ukraine  from  a  point  of  view 
that  harmonizes  with  hers.  And  if  the  two  peoples 
could  thus  find  a  common  basis  of  friendly  association, 
Poland  would  have  solved  at  least  one  of  her  Sphinx 
questions. 

As  for  the  internal  development  of  the  nation,  it  is 
seemingly  hampered  with  as  many  hindrances  as  the 
international.  It  may  be  likened  to  the  world  after 
creation,  bearing  marks  of  the  chaos  of  the  eve.  The 
German  Poles  differ  considerably  from  the  Austrian,  while 
the  Russian  Poles  are  differentiated  from  both.  The  last- 
named  still  show  traces  of  recent  servitude  in  their  every- 
day avocations.  They  lack  the  push  and  the  energy 
of  purpose  so  necessary  nowadays  in  the  struggle  for  life. 
The  Austrian  Poles  in  general  are  reputed  to  be  likewise 
easy-going,  lax,  and  more  brilliant  than  solid,  while  their 
administrative  qualities  are  said  to  be  impaired  by  a 
leaning  toward  Oriental  methods  of  transacting  business. 
The  Polish  inhabitants  of  the  provinces  hitherto  under 
Germany  are  people  of  a  different  temperament.  They 
have  assimilated  some  of  the  best  qualities  of  the  Teuton 
without  sacrificing  those  which  are  inherent  in  men  of 
their  own  race.  A  thorough  grasp  of  detail  and  a  gift 
for  organization  characterize  their  conceptions,  and  pre- 
cision, thoroughness,  and  conscientiousness  are  predicated 
of  their  methods.  If  it  be  true  that  the  first  reform  per- 
emptorily called  for  in  the  new  republic  is  an  administra- 
tive purge,  it  follows  that  it  can  be  most  successfully 
accomplished  with  the  whole-hearted  co-operation  of  the 
German  Poles,  whose  superior  education  fits  them  to  con- 
form their  schemes  to  the  most  urgent  needs  of  the  nation 
and  the  epoch. 

The  next  measure  will  be  internal  colonization.  There 
are  considerable  tracts  of  land  in  what  once  was  Russian 
Poland,  the  population  of  which,  owing  to  the  havoc  of 

269 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

war,  is  abnormally  sparse.  Some  districts,  like  that  of 
the  Pripet  marshes,  which  even  at  the  best  of  times  had 
but  five  persons  to  the  kilometer,  are  practically  deserts. 
For  the  Russian  army,  when  retreating  before  the  Ger- 
mans, drove  before  it  a  huge  population  computed  at 
eight  millions,  who  inhabited  the  territory  to  the  east  of 
Brest-Litovsk  and  northward  between  Lida  and  Minsk. 
Of  these  eight  millions  many  perished  on  the  way.  A 
large  percentage  of  the  survivors  never  returned.^  Roughly 
speaking,  a  couple  of  millions  (mostly  Poles  and  Jews) 
went  back  to  their  ruined  homes.  Now  the  Poles,  who 
are  one  of  the  most  prolific  races  in  Europe,  might  be 
encouraged  to  settle  on  these  thinly  populated  lands, 
which  they  could  convert  into  ethnographically  Polish 
districts  within  a  relatively  short  span  of  time.  These, 
however,  are  merely  the  ideas  of  a  friendly  observer, 
whose  opinion  cannot  lay  claim  to  any  weight. 

To-day  Poland's  hope  is  not,  as  it  has  been  hitherto,  the 
nobleman,  the  professor,  and  the  publicist,  but  the 
peasant.  The  members  of  this  class  are  the  nucleus  of 
the  new  nation.  It  is  from  their  midst  that  Poland's 
future  representatives  in  politics,  arts,  and  science  will  be 
drawn.  Already  the  peasants  are  having  their  sons 
educated  in  high-schools  and  universities,  of  which  the 
republic  has  a  fair  number  well  supplied  with  qualified 
teachers,^  and  they  are  resolute  adversaries  of  every 
movement  tainted  with  Bolshevism. 


1  Mainly  White  Russians. 

2  The  Poles  have  universities  in  Cracow,  Warsaw,  Lvoff  (Lemberg), 
Liublin,  and  will  shortly  open  one  in  Posen.  One  Polish  statesman  enter- 
tains a  novel  and  useful  idea  which  will  probably  be  tested  in  the  University 
of  Posen.  Noticing  that  the  greater  the  progress  of  technical  knowledge 
the  less  is  the  advance  made  in  the  knowledge  of  men,  which  is  perhaj^s 
the  most  pressing  need  of  the  new  age,  this  statesman  jjroposcs  to  create 
a  new  type  of  university,  where  there  would  be  two  princiijal  sections,  one 
for  the  study  of  natural  sciences  and  mathematics,  and  the  other  for  the 
study  of  men,  which  would  include  biology,  psychology,  ethnography, 
sociology,  philology,  history,  etc. 

270 


POLAND'S  OUTLOOK  IN  THE  FUTURE 

Thus  the  difficulties  and  dangers  with  which  new 
Poland  will  have  to  contend  are  redoubtable.  But  she 
stands  a  good  chance  of  overcoming  them  and  reaching 
the  goal  where  lies  her  one  hope  of  playing  a  noteworthy 
part  in  reorganized  Europe.  The  indispensable  condition 
of  success  is  that  the  current  of  opinion  and  sentiment  in 
the  country  shall  buoy  up  reforming  statesmen.  These 
must  not  only  understand  the  requirements  of  the  new 
epoch  and  be  alive  to  the  necessity  of  penetrating  public 
opinion,  but  also  possess  the  courage  to  place  high  social 
aims  at  the  head  of  their  life  and  career.  Statesmen  of 
this  temper  are  rare  to-day,  but  Poland  possesses  at  least 
one  of  them.  Her  resources  warrant  the  conviction  which 
her  chiefs  firmly  entertain  that  she  may  in  a  relatively 
near  future  acquire  the  economic  leadership  of  eastern 
Europe,  and  in  population,  military  strength,  and  area 
equal  France. 

Parenthetically  it  may  be  observed  that  the  enthusiasm 
of  the  Poles  for  British  institutions  and  for  intimate  rela- 
tions with  Great  Britain  has  perceptibly  cooled. 

In  the  limitations  to  which  she  is  now  subjected,  her 
more  optimistic  leaders  discern  the  temporarily  unavoid- 
able condition  of  a  beneficent  process  of  working  forward 
toward  indefinite  amelioration.  Their  people's  faith, 
that  may  one  day  raise  the  country  above  the  highest 
summit  of  its  past  historical  development,  if  it  does  not 
reconcile  them  to  the  present,  may  nerve  them  to  the 
effort  which  shall  realize  that  high  consummation  in  the 
future. 


VIII 


ITALY 


OF  all  the  problems  submitted  to  the  Conference, 
those  raised  by  Italy's  demands  may  truly  be  said 
to  have  been  among  the  easiest.  Whether  placed  in  the 
light  of  the  Fourteen  Points  or  of  the  old  system  of  the 
rights  of  the  victors,  they  would  fall  into  their  places 
almost  automatically.  But  the  peace  criteria  were  iden- 
tical with  neither  of  those  principles.  They  consisted  of 
several  heterogeneous  maxims  which  were  invoked  alter- 
nately, Mr.  Wilson  deciding  which  was  applicable  to  the 
particular  case  under  discussion.  And  from  his  judgment 
there  was  no  appeal. 

It  is  of  the  essence  of  statesmanship  to  be  able  to  put 
oneself  in  the  place — one  might  almost  say  in  the  skin — ■ 
of  the  foreign  peoples  and  governments  with  which  one 
is  called  upon  to  deal.  But  the  feat  is  arduous  and  pre- 
supposes a  variety  of  conditions  which  the  President  was 
unable  to  fulfil.  His  conception  of  Europe,  for  example, 
was  much  too  simple.  It  has  been  aptly  likened  to  that 
of  the  American  economist  who  once  remarked  to  the 
manager  of  an  English  railway:  "You  Britishers  are 
handicapped  by  having  to  build  your  railway  lines  through 
cities  and  towns.  We  go  to  work  diligently:  we  first 
construct  the  road  and  create  the  cities  afterward." 

And  Mr.  Wilson  happened  just  then  to  be  in  quest  of 
a  fulcrum  on  which  to  rest  his  idealistic  lever.  For  he 
had  already  been  driven  by  egotistic  governments  from 

272 


ITALY 

several  of  his  commanding  positions,  and  people  were 
gibingly  asking  whether  the  new  political  gospel  was  being 
preached  only  as  a  foil  for  backslidings.  Thus  he  aban- 
doned the  freedom  of  the  seas  ...  on  which  he  had  taken 
a  determined  stand  before  the  world.  Although  he  re- 
fused the  Rhine  frontier  to  France,  he  had  reluctantly 
given  way  to  M.  Clemenceau  in  the  matter  of  the  Saar 
Valley,  assenting  to  a  monstrous  arrangement  by  which 
the  German  inhabitants  of  that  region  were  to  be  handed 
over  to  the  French  Republic  against  their  expressed  will, 
as  a  set-off  for  a  sum  in  gold  which  Germany  would  cer- 
tainly be  unable  to  pay.^  He  doubtless  foresaw  that  he 
would  also  yield  on  the  momentous  issue  of  Shantung  and 
the  Chino-Japanese  secret  treaty.  In  a  word,  some  of  his 
more  important  abstract  tenets  professed  in  words  were 
being  brushed  aside  when  it  came  to  acts,  and  his  position 
was  truly  unenviable.  Naturally,  therefore,  he  seized 
the  first  favorable  occasion  to  apply  them  vigorously  and 
unswervingly.  This  was  supplied  by  the  dispute  between 
Italy  and  Jugoslavia,  two  nations  which  he  held,  so  to  say, 
in  the  hollow  of  his  hand. 

The  latter  state,  still  in  the  making,  depended  for  its 
frontiers  entirely  on  the  fiat  of  the  American  President 
backed  by  the  Premiers  of  Britain  and  France.  And  of 
this  backing  Mr.  Wilson  was  assured.  Italy,  although 
more  powerful  militarily  than  Jugoslavia,  was  likewise 
economically  dependent  upon  the  good-will  of  the  two 
English-speaking  communities,  who  were  assured  in  ad- 
vance of  the  support  of  the  French  Republic.  If,  there- 
fore, she  could  not  be  reasoned  or  cajoled  into  obeying 
the  injunctions  of  the  Supreme  Council,  she  could  easily 
be  made  malleable  by  other  means.     In  her  case,  there- 


^  This  clause,  which  figured  in  the  draft  Treaty,  as  presented  to  the 
Germans,  provoked  such  emphatic  protests  from  all  sides  that  it  was  struck 
out  in  the  revised  version. 

273 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

fore,  Mr.  Wilson's  ethical  notions  might  be  fearlessly 
applied.  That  this  was  the  idea  which  underlay  the 
President's  policy  is  the  obvious  inference  from  the  calm, 
unyielding  way  in  which  he  treated  the  Italian  delegation. 
In  this  connection  it  should  be  bome  in  mind  that  there 
is  no  more  important  distinction  between  all  former  peace 
settlements  and  that  of  the  Paris  Conference  than  the 
unavowed  but  indubitable  fact  that  the  latter  rests  upon 
the  hegemony  of  the  English-speaking  communities  of  the 
world,  whereas  the  former  were  based  upon  the  balance 
of  power.  So  immense  a  change  could  not  be  effected 
without  discreetly  throwing  out  as  useless  ballast  some  of 
the  highly  prized  dogmas  of  the  accepted  political  creeds, 
even  at  the  cost  of  impairing  the  solidarity  of  the  Latin 
races.  This  was  effected  incidentally.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  French  are  not,  properly  speaking,  a  Latin  race, 
nor  has  their  solidarity  with  Italy  or  Spain  ever  been  a 
moving  political  force  in  recent  times.  Italy's  refusal  to 
fight  side  by  side  with  her  Teuton  allies  against  France 
and  her  backers  may  conceivably  be  the  result  of  racial 
affinities,  but  it  has  hardly  ever  been  ascribed  to  that 
sentimental  source.  Sentiment  in  politics  is  a  myth.  In 
any  case,  M.  Clemenceau  discerned  no  pressing  reason 
for  making  painful  efforts  to  perpetuate  the  Latin  union, 
while  solicitude  for  national  interests  hindered  him  from 
making  costly  concessions  to  it. 

Naturally  the  cardinal  innovation  of  which  this  was  a 
corollary  was  never  invoked  as  the  ground  for  any  of  the 
exceptional  measures  adopted  by  the  Conference.  And 
yet  it  was  the  motive  for  several,  for  although  no  allusion 
was  made  to  the  hegemony  of  Anglo-Saxondom,  it  was 
ever  operative  in  the  subconsciousness  of  the  two  pleni- 
potentiaries. And  in  view  of  the  omnipotence  of  these 
two  nations,  they  temporarily  sacrificed  consistency  to 
tactics,  probably  without  conscientious  qualms,  and  cer- 

274 


ITALY 

tainly  without  political  misgivings.  That  would  seem 
to  be  a  partial  explanation  of  the  lengths  to  which  the 
Conference  went  in  the  direction  of  concessions  to  the 
Great  Powers'  imperialist  demands.  France  asked  to  be 
recognized  and  treated  as  the  personification  of  that 
civilization  for  which  the  Allied  peoples  had  fought.  And 
for  many  reasons,  which  it  would  be  superfluous  to  discuss 
here,  a  large  part  of  her  claim  was  allowed.  This  con- 
cession was  attacked  by  many  as  connoting  a  departure 
from  principle,  but  the  deviation  was  more  apparent  than 
real,  for  under  all  the  wrappings  of  idealistic  catchwords 
lay  the  primeval  doctrine  of  force.  The  only  substantial 
difference  between  the  old  system  and  the  new  was  to  be 
found  in  the  wielders  of  the  force  and  the  ends  to  which 
they  intended  to  apply  it.  Force  remains  the  granite 
foundation  of  the  new  ordering,  as  it  had  been  of  the  old. 
But  its  employment,  it  was  believed,  would  be  different 
in  the  future  from  what  it  had  been  in  the  past.  Con- 
centrated in  the  hands  of  the  English-speaking  peoples, 
it  would  become  so  formidable  a  weapon  that  it  need 
never  be  actually  wielded.  Possession  of  overwhelmingly 
superior  strength  would  suffice  to  enforce  obedience  to 
the  decrees  of  its  possessors,  which  always  will,  it  is 
assumed,  be  inspired  by  equity.  An  actual  trial  of 
strength  would  be  obviated,  therefore,  at  least  so  long 
as  the  relative  military  and  economic  conditions  of  the 
world  states  underwent  no  sensible  change.  To  this 
extent  the  war  specter  would  be  exorcised  and  trying 
abuses  abolished. 

That  those  views  were  expressly  formulated  and  thrown 
into  the  clauses  of  a  secret  program  is  unlikely.  But  it 
seems  to  be  a  fact  that  the  general  outlines  of  such  a 
policy  were  conceived  and  tacitly  adhered  to.  These 
outlines  governed  the  action  of  the  two  world-arbiters, 
not  only  in  the  dictatorial  decrees  issued  in  the  name  of 
19  275 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

political  idealism  and  its  Fourteen  Points,  which  were  so 
bitterly  resented  as  oppressive  by  Italy,  Rumania,  Jugo- 
slavia, Poland,  and  Greece,  but  likewise  in  those  other 
concessions  which  scandalized  the  political  puritans  and 
gladdened  the  hearts  of  the  French,  the  Japanese,  the 
Jugoslavs,  and  the  Jews.  The  dictatorial  decrees  were 
inspired  by  the  delegates'  fundamental  aims,  the  con- 
cessions by  their  tactical  needs — the  former,  therefore, 
were  meant  to  be  permanent,  the  latter  transient. 

All  other  explanations  of  the  Italian  crisis,  however 
well  they  may  fit  certain  of  its  phases,  are,  when  applied 
to  the  pith  of  the  matter,  beside  the  mark.  Even  if  it 
were  true,  as  the  dramatist,  Sem  Benelli,  wrote,  that 
' '  President  Wilson  evidently  considers  our  people  as  on  the 
plane  of  an  African  colony,  dominated  by  the  will  of  a  few 
ambitious  men,"  that  would  not  account  for  the  tenacious 
determination  with  which  the  President  held  to  his 
slighted  theory. 

Italy's  position  in  Europe  was  in  many  respects  pecul- 
iar. Men  still  living  remember  the  time  when  her  name 
was  scarcely  more  than  a  geographical  expression  which 
gradually,  during  the  last  sixty  years,  came  to  connote  a 
hard-working,  sober,  patriotic  nation.  Only  little  by 
little  did  she  recover  her  finest  provinces  and  her  capital, 
and  even  then  her  unity  was  not  fully  achieved.  Austria 
still  held  many  of  her  sons,  not  only  in  the  Trentino,  but 
also  on  the  other  shore  of  the  Adriatic.  But  for  thirty 
years  her  desire  to  recover  these  lost  children  was  para- 
lyzed by  international  conditions.  In  her  own  interests, 
as  well  as  in  those  of  peace,  she  had  become  the  third 
member  of  an  alliance  which  constrained  her  to  suppress 
her  patriotic  feelings  and  allowed  her  to  bend  all  her  ener- 
gies to  the  prevention  of  a  European  conflict. 

When  hostilities  broke  out,  the  attitude  of  the  Italian 
government  was  a  matter  of  extreme  moment  to  France 

276 


ITALY 

and  the  Entente.  Much,  perhaps  the  fate  of  Europe, 
depended  on  whether  they  would  remain  neutral  or  throw 
in  their  lot  with  the  Teutons.  They  chose  the  former 
alternative  and  literally  saved  the  situation.  The  ques- 
tion of  motive  is  wholly  irrelevant.  Later  on  they  were 
urged  to  move  a  step  farther  and  take  an  active  part 
against  their  former  allies.  But  a  powerful  body  of 
opinion  and  sentiment  in  the  country  was  opposed  to 
military'  co-operation,  on  the  ground  that  the  sum  total 
of  the  results  to  be  obtained  by  quiescence  would  exceed 
the  guerdon  of  victory  won  by  the  side  of  the  Entente. 
The  correctness  of  this  estimate  depended  upon  many 
incalculable  factors,  among  which  was  the  duration  of  the 
struggle.  The  consensus  of  opinion  was  that  it  would 
be  brief,  in  which  case  the  terms  dangled  before  Italy's 
eyes  by  the  Entente  would,  it  was  believed  by  the  Cabinet, 
greatly  transcend  those  which  the  Central  Powers  were 
prepared  to  offer.  Anyhow  they  were  accepted  and  the 
compact  was  negotiated,  signed,  and  ratified  by  men 
whose  idealism  marred  their  practical  sense,  and  whose 
policy  of  sacred  egotism,  resolute  in  words  and  feeble 
in  action,  merely  impaired  the  good  name  of  the  govern- 
ment without  bringing  any  corresponding  compensation 
to  the  country.  The  world  struggle  lasted  much  longer 
than  the  statesmen  had  dared  to  anticipate;  Italy's 
obligations  were  greatly  augmented  by  Russia's  defection, 
she  had  to  bear  the  brunt  of  all,  instead  of  a  part  of 
Austria's  forces,  whereby  the  sacrifices  demanded  of  her 
became  proportionately  heavier.  Altogether  it  is  fair 
to  say  that  the  difficulties  to  be  overcome  and  the  hard- 
ships to  be  endured  before  the  Italian  people  reached  their 
goal  were  and  still  are  but  imperfectly  realized  by  their 
allies.  For  the  obstacles  were  gigantic,  the  effort  heroic; 
alone  the  results  shrank  to  disappointing  dimensions. 
The  war  over,  Italian  statesmen  confidently  believed 

277 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

that  those  supererogatory  exertions  would  be  appropri- 
ately recognized  by  the  Allies.  And  this  expectation 
quickly  crystallized  into  territorial  demands.  The  press 
which  voiced  them  ruffled  the  temper  of  Anglo-Saxondom 
by  clamoring  for  more  than  it  was  ever  likely  to  concede, 
and  buoyed  up  their  own  nation  with  illusory  hopes,  the 
non-fulfilment  of  which  was  certain  to  produce  national 
discontent.  Curiously  enoagh,  both  the  government  and 
the  press  laid  the  main  stress  upon  territorial  expansion, 
leaving  economic  advantages  almost  wholly  out  of 
account. 

It  was  at  this  conjuncture  that  Mr.  Wilson  made  his 
appearance  and  threw  all  the  pieces  on  the  political  chess- 
board into  weird  confusion.  "You,"  he  virtually  said, 
"have  been  fighting  for  the  dismemberment  of  your  secu- 
lar enemy,  Austria.  Well,  she  is  now  dismembered  and 
you  have  full  satisfaction.  Your  frontiers  shall  be  ex- 
tended at  her  expense,  but  not  at  the  expense  of  the  new 
states  which  have  arisen  on  her  ruins.  On  the  contrary, 
their  rights  will  circumscribe  your  claims  and  limit  your 
territorial  aggrandizement.  Not  only  can  you  not  have 
all  the  additional  territory  you  covet,  but  I  must  refuse 
to  allot  even  what  has  been  guaranteed  to  you  by  your 
secret  treaty.  I  refuse  to  recognize  that  because  the 
United  States  government  was  no  party  to  it,  was,  in 
fact,  wholly  unaware  of  it  until  recently.  New  circum- 
stances have  transformed  it  into  a  mere  scrap  of  paper." 

This  language  was  not  understood  by  the  Italian  people. 
For  them  the  sacredness  of  treaties  was  a  dogma  not  to 
be  questioned,  and  least  of  all  by  the  champion  of  right, 
justice,  and  good  faith.  They  had  welcomed  the  new 
order  preached  by  the  American  statesman,  but  were 
unable  to  reconcile  it  with  the  tearing  up  of  existing  con- 
ventions, the  repudiation  of  legal  rights,  the  dissolution 
of  alliances.     In  particular  their  treaty  with  France,  Brit- 

278 


ITALY 

ain,  and  Russia  had  contributed  materially  to  the  victory- 
over  the  common  enemy,  had  in  fact  saved  the  Allies. 
"It  was  Italy's  intervention,"  said  the  chief  of  the  Aus- 
trian General  Staff,  Conrad  von  Hoetzendorff,  "that 
brought  about  the  disaster.  Without  that  the  Central 
Empires  would  infallibly  have  won  the  war."  ^  And  there 
is  no  reason  to  doubt  his  assertion.  In  truth  Italy  had 
done  all  she  had  promised  to  the  Allies,  and  more.  She 
had  contributed  materially  to  save  France— wholly  gra- 
tuitously. It  was  also  her  neutrality,  which  she  could  have 
bartered,  but  did  not,^  that  turned  the  scale  at  Bucharest 
against  the  military  intervention  of  Rumania  on  the  side 
of  the  Teutons.^  And  without  the  neutrality  of  both  these 
countries  at  the  outset  of  hostilities  the  course  of  the 
struggle  and  of  European  history  would  have  been  widely 
different  from  what  they  have  been.  And  now  that  the 
Allies  had  achieved  their  aim  they  were  to  refuse  to  per- 
form their  part  of  the  compact  in  the  name,  too,  of  a  moral 
principle  from  the  operation  of  which  three  great  Powers 
were  dispensed.  That  was  the  light  in  which  the  matter 
appeared  to  the  unsophisticated  mind  of  the  average 
Italian,  and  not  to  him  alone.  Others  accustomed  to 
abstract  reasoning  asked  whether  the  best  preparation  for 
the  future  regime  of  right  and  justice,  and  all  that  these 
imply,  is  to  transgress  existing  rights  and  violate  ordinary 
justice,  and  what  difference  there  is  between  the  demoral- 
izing influence  of  this  procedure  and  that  of  professional 
Bolshevists.     There  was  but  one  adequate  answer  to  this 

1  In  an  interview  given  to  the  Corrcspondenz  Bureau  of  Vienna  by  Con- 
rad von  Hoetzendorff.     Cf.  Le  Temps,  July  19,  19 19. 

2  The  Prime  Minister,  Salandra,  declared  that  to  have  made  neutrality 
a  matter  of  bargaining  would  have  been  to  dishonor  Italy. 

^  King  Carol  was  holding  a  crown  council  at  the  time.  Bratiano  had 
spoken  against  the  King's  proposal  to  throw  in  the  country's  lot  with  Ger- 
many. Carp  was  strongly  for  carrying  out  Rumania's  treaty  obligations. 
Some  others  hesitated,  but  before  it  could  be  put  to  the  vote  a  telegram 
was  brought  in  announcing  Italy's  resolve  to  maintain  neutrality.  The 
upshot  was  Rumania's  refusal  to  follow  her  allies. 

279 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

objection,  and  it  consisted  in  the  whole-hearted  and  rigid 
application  of  the  Wilsonian  tenets  to  all  nations  without 
exception.  But  even  the  author  of  these  tenets  did  not 
venture  to  make  it. 

The  essence  of  the  territorial  question  lay  in  the  disposal 
of  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Adriatic.^  The  Jugoslavs 
claimed  all  Istria  and  Dalmatia,  and  based  their  claim 
partly  on  the  principle  of  nationalities  and  partly  on  the 
vital  necessity  of  having  outlets  on  that  sea,  and  in  par- 
ticular Fiume,  the  most  important  of  them  all,  which  they 
described  as  essentially  Croatian  and  iadispensable  as  a 
port.  The  Italian  delegates,  joining  issue  with  the  Jugo- 
slavs, and  claiming  a  section  of  the  seaboard  and  Fiume, 
argued  that  the  greatest  part  of  the  East  Adriatic  shore 
would  still  remain  Croatian,  together  with  all  the  ports 
of  the  Croatian  coast  and  others  in  southern  Dalmatia — 
in  a  word,  twelve  ports,  including  Spalato  and  Ragusa,  and 
a  thousand  kilometers  of  seaboard.  The  Jugoslavs  met 
this  assertion  with  the  objection  that  the  outlets  in  ques- 
tion were  inaccessible,  all  except  Fiume  and  Metkovitch. 
As  for  Fiume,  ^  the  Italian  delegates  contended  that 
although  not  promised  to  Italy  by  the  Treaty  of  London, 
it  was  historically  hers,  because,  having  been  for  centuries 
an  autonomous  entity  and  having  as  such  religiously  pre- 
served its  Italian  character,  its  inhabitants  had  exercised 
their  rights  to  manifest  by  plebiscite  their  desire  to  be 
united  with  the  mother  country.  They  further  denied 
that  it  was  indispensable  to  the  Jugoslavs  because  these 
would  receive  a  dozen  other  ports  and  also  because  the 
traffic  between  Croatia  and  Fiume  was  represented  by 
only  7  per  cent,  of  the  whole,  and  even  that  of  Croatia, 

1  On  the  eastern  Adriatic,  the  Treaty  of  London  allotted  to  Italy  the 
peninsula  of  Istria,  without  Fiume,  most  of  Dalmatia,  exclusive  of  Spalato, 
the  chief  Dalmatian  islands  and  the  Dodecannesus. 

^  The  present  population  of  Fiume  is  computed  at  45,227  souls,  of  whom 
33,000  are  Italians,  10,927  Slavs,  and  1,300  Magyars. 

280 


ITALY 

Slavonia,  and  Dalmatia  combined  by  only  13  per  cent. 
Further,  Italy  would  undertake  to  give  all  requisite 
export  facilities  in  Fiume  to  the  Jugoslavs. 

The  latter  traversed  many  of  these  statements,  and  in 
particular  that  which  described  Fiume  as  a  separate 
autonomous  entity  and  as  an  essentially  Italian  city. 
Archives  were  ransacked  by  both  parties,  ancient  docu- 
ments produced,  analyzed,  condemned  as  forgeries  or 
appealed  to  as  authentic  proofs,  chance  phrases  were 
culled  from  various  writers  of  bygone  days  and  offered  as 
evidence  in  support  of  each  contention.  Thus  the  con- 
test grew  heated.  It  was  further  inflamed  by  the  attitude 
of  Italy's  allies,  who  appeared  to  her  as  either  covertly 
unfriendly  or  at  best  lukewarm. 

M.  Clemenceau,  who  maintained  during  the  peace 
negotiations  the  epithet  "Tiger"  which  he  had  earned 
long  before,  was  alleged  to  have  said  in  the  course  of  one 
of  those  conversations  which  were  misnamed  private, 
"For  Italy  to  demand  Fiume  is  to  ask  for  the  moon."^ 
Officially  he  took  the  side  of  Mr.  Wilson,  as  did  also  the 
British  Premier,  and  Italy's  two  allies  signified  but  a  cold 
assent  to  those  other  claims  which  w^ere  covered  by  their 
own  treaty.  But  they  made  no  secret  of  their  desire  to 
see  that  instrument  wholly  set  aside.  Fiume  they  would 
not  bestow  on  their  ally,  at  least  not  unless  she  was 
prepared  to  offer  an  equivalent  to  the  Jugoslavs  and  to 
satisfy  the  President  of  the  United  States. 

This  advocacy  of  the  claims  of  the  Jugoslavs  was  bit- 
terly resented  by  the  Italians.  For  centuries  the  two 
peoples  had  been  rivals  or  enemies,  and  during  the  war 
the  Jugoslavs  fought  with  fury  against  the  Italians.  For 
Italy  the  arch-enemy  had  ever  been  Austria  and  Austria 


^  Another  delegate  is  reported  to  have  answered:  "As  we  need  Italy's 
friendship,  we  should  pay  the  moderate  price  asked  and  back  her  claim  to 
have  the  moon." 

28? 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

was  largely  Slav.  "Austria,"  they  say,  "was  the  official 
name  given  to  the  cruel  enemy  against  whom  we  fought, 
but  it  was  generally  the  Croatians  and  other  Slavs  whom 
our  gallant  soldiers  found  facing  them,  and  it  was  they 
who  were  guilty  of  the  misdeeds  from  which  our  armies 
suffered."  Official  documents  prove  this.^  Orders  of 
the  day  issued  by  the  Austrian  Command  eulogize  "the 
Serbo-Croatian  battalions  who  vied  with  the  Austro- 
German  and  Hungarian  soldiers  in  resisting  the  pitfalls 
dug  by  the  enemy  to  cause  them  to  swerve  from  their 
fidelity  and  take  the  road  to  treason.-  In  the  last  battle 
which  ended  the  existence  of  the  Austro-Hungarian 
monarchy  a  large  contingent  of  excellent  Croatian  troops 
fought  resolutely  against  the  Italian  armies." 

In  Italy  an  impressive  story  is  told  which  shows  how 
this  transformation  of  the  enemy  of  yesterday  into  the 
ally  of  to-day  sometimes  worked  out.  The  son  of  an 
Italian  citizen  who  was  fighting  as  an  aviator  was  killed 
toward  the  end  of  the  war,  in  a  duel  fought  in  the  air, 
by  an  Austrian  combatant.  Soon  after  the  armistice 
was  signed  the  sorrowing  father  repaired  to  the  place 
where  his  son  had  fallen.  He  there  found  an  ex-Austrian 
officer,  the  lucky  victor  and  slayer  of  his  son,  wearing  in 
his  buttonhole  the  Jugoslav  cocarde,  who,  advancing 
toward  him  with  extended  hand,  uttered  the  greeting, 
"You  and  I  are  now  allies."  ^  The  historian  may  smile 
at  the  naivete  of  this  anecdote,  but  the  statesman  will 
acknowledge  that  it  characterized  the  relations  between 
the  inhabitants  of  the  new  state  and  the  Italians.  One 
can  divine  the  feelings  of  these  when  they  were  exhorted 
to  treat  their  ex-enemies  as  friends  and  allies. 


1  A  number  of  orders  of  the  day  eulogizing  individual  Slav  officers  and 
collective  military  entities  were  quoted  by  the  advocates  of  Italy's  cause 
at  the  Conference. 

^  Official  communique  of  June  17,  191 8. 

^  Journal  de  Geneve,  April  25,  1919. 

282 


ITALY 

"Is  it  surprising,  then,"  the  ItaHans  asked,  "that  we 
cannot  suddenly  conceive  an  ardent  affection  for  the  ruth- 
less 'Austrians'  of  whose  cruelties  we  were  bitterly  com- 
plaining a  few  months  back  ?  Is  it  strange  that  we  cannot 
find  it  in  our  hearts  to  cut  off  a  slice  of  Italian  territory 
and  make  it  over  to  them  as  one  of  the  fruits  of — our 
victory  over  them?  If  Italy  had  not  first  adopted 
neutrality  and  then  joined  the  Allies  in  the  war  there 
would  be  no  Jugoslavia  to-day.  Are  we  now  to  pay 
for  our  altruism  by  sacrificing  Italian  soil  and  Italian 
souls  to  the  secular  enemies  of  our  race?"  In  a  word,  the 
armistice  transformed  Italy's  enemy  into  a  friend  and 
ally  for  whose  sake  she  was  summoned  to  abandon  some 
of  the  fruits  of  a  hard-earned  victory  and  a  part  of  her 
secular  aspirations.  What,  asked  the  Italian  delegates, 
would  France  answer  if  she  were  told  that  the  Prussians 
whom  her  matchless  armies  defeated  must  henceforth  be 
looked  upon  as  friends  and  endowed  with  some  new  colo- 
nies which  would  otherwise  be  hers  ?  The  Italian  dram- 
atist Sem  Benelli  put  the  matter  tersely:  "The  collapse 
of  Austria  transforms  itself  therefore  into  a  play  of  words, 
so  much  so  that  our  people,  who  are  much  more  precise 
because  they  languished  under  the  Austrian  yoke  and  the 
Austrian  scourge,  never  call  the  Austrians  by  this  name; 
they  call  them  always  Croatians,  knowing  well  that  the 
Croatians  and  the  Slavs  who  constituted  Austria  were  our 
fiercest  taskmasters  and  most  cruel  executioners.  It  is 
naive  to  think  that  the  ineradicable  characteristics  and 
tendencies  of  peoples  can  be  modified  by  a  change  of  name 
and  a  new^  flag." 

But  there  was  another  way  of  looking  at  the  matter, 
and  the  Allies,  together  with  the  Jugoslavs,  made  the 
most  of  it.  The  Slav  character  of  the  disputed  territory 
was  emphasized,  the  principle  of  nationality  invoked,  and 
the  danger  of  incorporating  an  unfriendly  foreign  element 

283 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

which  could  not  be  assimilated  was  solemnly  pointed  out. 
But  where  sentiment  actuates,  reason  is  generally  im- 
potent. The  policy  of  the  Italian  government,  like 
that  of  all  other  governments,  was  frankly  nationalistic; 
whether  it  was  also  statesman-like  may  well  be  questioned 
— indeed  the  question  has  already  been  answered  by  some 
of  Italy's  principal  press  organs  in  the  negative.^  They 
accuse  the  Cabinet  of  having  deliberately  let  loose  popular 
passions  which  it  afterward  vainly  sought  to  allay,  and 
the  facts  which  they  allege  in  support  of  the  charge  have 
never  been  denied. 

It  was  certainly  to  Italy's  best  interests  to  strike  up 
a  friendly  agreement  with  the  new  state,  if  that  were 
feasible,  and  some  of  the  men  in  whose  hands  her  destinies 
rested,  feeling  their  responsibility,  made  a  laudable  at- 
tempt to  come  to  an  understanding.  Signor  Orlando, 
whose  sagacity  is  equal  to  his  resourcefulness,  was  one. 
In  London  he  had  talked  the  subject  over  with  the 
Croatian  leader,  M.  Trumbic,  and  favored  the  movement 
toward  reconciliation  -  which  Baron  Sonnino,  his  col- 
league, as  resolutely  discouraged.  A  congress  was  ac- 
cordingly held  in  Rome  ^  and  an  accord  projected.  The 
reciprocal  relations  became  amicable.  The  Jugoslav 
committee  in  the  Italian  capital  congratulated  Signor 
Orlando  on  the  victory  of  the  Piave.  But  owing  to 
various  causes,  especially  to  Baron  Sonnino's  opposition, 
these  inchoate  sentiments  of  neighborliness  quickly  lost 
their  warmth  and  finally  vanished.  No  trace  of  them 
remained  at  the  Paris  Conference,  where  the  delegates 
of  the  two  states  did  not  converse  together  nor  even 
salute  one  another. 

President  Wilson's  visit  to  Rome,   where,   to  use  an 

1  Cf .  II  Corriere  delta  Sera  and  II  Secolo  of  May  26,  191 9. 

2  In  the  Senate  he  defended  this  attitude  on  March  4,  1919,  and  expressed 
a  desire  to  dispel  the  misunderstanding  between  the  two  iieoples. 

3  In  April,  1919. 

284 


ITALY 

Italian  expression,  he  was  welcomed  by  Delirium,  seemed 
to  brighten  Italy's  outlook  on  the  future.  Much  was 
afterward  made  by  the  President's  enemies  of  the  sub- 
sequent change  toward  him  in  the  sentiments  of  the 
Italian  people.  This  is  commonly  ascribed  to  his  failure 
to  fulfil  the  expectations  which  his  words  or  attitude 
aroused  or  warranted.  Nothing  could  well  be  more  mis- 
leading. Mr.  Wilson's  position  on  the  subject  of  Italy's 
claims  never  changed,  nor  did  he  say  or  do  aught  that 
would  justify  a  doubt  as  to  what  it  was.  In  Rome  he 
spoke  to  the  Ministers  in  exactly  the  same  terms  as  in 
Paris  at  the  Conference.  He  apprized  them  in  January 
of  what  he  proposed  to  do  in  April  and  he  even  con- 
templated issuing  a  declaration  of  his  Italian  policy  at 
once.  But  he  was  earnestly  requested  by  the  Ministers 
to  keep  his  counsel  to  himself  and  to  make  no  public 
allusion  to  it  during  his  sojourn  in  Italy. ^  It  was  not  his 
fault,  therefore,  if  the  Italian  people  cherished  illusory 
hopes.  In  Paris  Signor  Orlando  had  an  important 
encounter  with  Mr.  Wilson, ^  who  told  him  plainly  that 
the  allotment  of  the  northern  frontiers  traced  for  Italy 
by  the  London  Treaty  would  be  confirmed,  while  that  of 
the  territory  on  the  eastern  Adriatic  would  be  quashed. 
The  division  of  the  spoils  of  Austria  there  must,  he  added, 
be  made  congruously  with  a  map  which  he  handed  to  the 
Italian  Premier.  It  was  proved  on  examination  to  be 
identical  with  one  already  published  by  the  New  Europe} 
Signor  Orlando  glanced  at  the  map  and  in  courteous 


^  This  fact  has  since  been  made  public  by  Enrico  Ferri  in  a  remarkable 
discourse  pronounced  in  the  parliament  at  Rome  (July  9,  1919).  It  was 
Baron  Sonnino  who  deprecated  the  publication  of  any  statement  on  the 
subject  by  President  Wilson.     Cf.  La  Stampa,  July  10,  1919. 

2  On  January  10,  1919. 

^  It  gave  eastern  Friuli  to  Italy,  including  Gorizia,  split  Istria  into  two 
parts,  and  assigned  Trieste  and  Pola  also  to  Italy,  but  under  such  terri- 
torial conditions  that  they  would  be  exposed  to  enemy  projectiles  in  case 
of  war. 

28s 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

phraseology  unfolded  the  reasons  why  he  could  not  enter- 
tain the  settlement  proposed.  He  added  that  no  Italian 
parliament  would  ratify  it.  Thereupon  the  President 
turned  the  discussion  to  politico-ethical  lines,  pointed  out 
the  harm  which  the  annexation  of  an  alien  and  unfriendly 
element  could  inflict  upon  Italy,  the  great  advantages 
which  cordial  relations  with  her  Slav  neighbor  would 
confer  on  her,  and  the  ease  with  which  she  might  gain  the 
markets  of  the  new  state.  A  young  and  small  nation 
like  the  Jugoslavs  would  be  grateful  for  an  act  of  gener- 
osity and  would  repay  it  by  lasting  friendship — a  return 
worth  far  more  than  the  contentious  territories.  "Ah, 
you  don't  know  the  Jugoslavs,  Mr.  President,"  exclaimed 
Signor  Orlando.  "If  Italy  were  to  cede  to  them  Dal- 
matia,  Fiume,  and  eastern  Istria  they  would  forthwith 
lay  claim  to  Trieste  and  Pola  and,  after  Trieste  and  Pola, 
to  Friuli  and  Gorizia." 

After  some  further  discussion  Mr.  Wilson  said:  "Well, 
I  am  unable  to  reconcile  with  my  principles  the  recogni- 
tion of  secret  treaties,  and  as  the  two  are  incompatible  I 
uphold  the  principles."  "I,  too,"  rejoined  the  Italian 
Premier,  * '  condemn  secret  treaties  in  the  future  when  the 
new  principles  will  have  begun  to  regulate  international 
politics.  As  for  those  compacts  which  were  concluded 
during  the  war  they  were  all  secret,  not  excluding  those  to 
which  the  United  States  was  a  party."  The  President 
demurred  to  this  reservation.  He  conceived  and  put  his 
case  briefly  as  follows:  Italy,  like  her  allies,  had  had 
it  in  her  power  to  accept  the  Fourteen  Points,  reject 
them,  or  make  reserves.  Britain  and  France  had  taken 
exception  to  those  clauses  which  they  were  determined 
to  reject,  whereas  Italy  signified  her  adhesion  to  them  all. 
Therefore  she  was  bound  by  the  priiiciples  underlying 
them  and  had  forfeited  the  right  to  invoke  a  secret  treaty. 
The  settlement  of  the  issues  turning  upon  Dalmatia, 

286 


ITALY 

Istria,  Fiume,  and  the  islands  must  consequently  bo 
taken  in  hand  without  reference  to  the  clauses  of  that 
instrument.  Examined  on  their  merits  and  in  the  light 
of  the  new  arrangements,  Italy's  claims  could  not  be 
upheld.  It  would  be  unfair  to  the  Jugoslavs  who  inhabit 
the  whole  country  to  cut  them  off  from  their  own  sea- 
board. Nor  would  such  a  measure  be  helpful  to  Italy 
herself,  whose  interest  it  was  to  form  a  homogeneous 
whole,  consolidate  her  dominions,  and  prepare  for  the 
coming  economic  struggle  for  national  well-being.  The 
principle  of  nationality  must,  therefore,  be  allowed  full 
play. 

As  for  Fiume,  even  if  the  city  were,  as  alleged,  an 
independent  entity  and  desirous  of  being  incorporated  in 
Italy,  one  would  still  have  to  set  against  these  facts  Jugo- 
slavia's imperative  need  of  an  outlet  to  the  sea.  Here 
the  principle  of  economic  necessity  outweighs  those  of 
nationality  and  free  determination.  A  country  must  live, 
and  therefore  be  endowed  with  the  wherewithal  to  sup- 
port life.  On  these  grounds,  judgment  should  be  entered 
for  the  Jugoslavs. 

The  Italian  Premier's  answer  was  equally  clear,  but  he 
could  not  unburden  his  mind  of  it  all.  His  government 
had,  it  was  true,  adhered  to  the  Fourteen  Points  without 
reservation.  But  the  assumptions  on  which  it  gave  this 
undertaking  w^ere  that  it  would  not  be  used  to  upset  past 
compacts,  but  would  be  reserved  for  future  settlements; 
that  even  had  it  been  otherwise  the  maxims  in  question 
should  be  deemed  relevant  in  Italy's  case  only  if  applied 
impartially  to  all  states,  and  that  the  entire  work  of 
reorganization  should  rest  on  this  ethical  foundation.  A 
regime  of  exceptions,  with  privileged  and  unprivileged 
nations,  would  obviously  render  the  scheme  futile  and 
inacceptable.  Yet  this  was  the  system  that  was  actually 
being  introdqcecl.     If  secret  treaties  were  to  be  abrogated, 

2S7 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

then  let  the  convention  between  Japan  and  China  be  also 
put  out  of  court  and  the  dispute  between  them  adjudi- 
cated upon  its  merits.     If  the  Fourteen  Points  are  binding, 
let  the  freedom  of  the  seas  be  proclaimed.     If  equal  rights 
are  to  be  conferred  upon  all  states,  let  the  Monroe  Doc- 
trine be  repealed.     If  disarmament  is  to  become  a  reality, 
let  Britain  and  America  cease  to  build  warships.     Sup- 
pose for  a  moment  that  to-morrow  Brazil  or  Chile  were 
to  complain  of  the  conduct  of  the  United  States,   the 
League  of  Nations,  in  whose  name  Mr.  Wilson  speaks, 
would  be  hindered  by  the  Monroe  Doctrine  from  inter- 
vening, whereas  Britain  and  the  United  States  in  analo- 
gous conditions  may  intermeddle  in  the  affairs  of  any  of 
the  lesser  states.    When  Ireland  or  Egypt  or  India  uplifts 
its  voice  against  Britain,  it  is  but  a  voice  in  the  desert 
which  awakens  no  echo.     If  Fiume  were  inhabited  by 
American  citizens  who,  with  a  like  claim  to  be  considered 
a  separate  entity,  asked  to  be  allowed  to  live  under  the 
Stars  and  Stripes,  what  would  President  Wilson's  attitude 
be  then?     Would  he  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  their  prayer? 
Surely  not.     Why,  in  the  case  of  Italy,   does  he  not  do 
as  he  would  be  done  by?     What  it  all  comes  to  is  that 
the  new  ordering  under  the  flag  of  equality  is  to  consist 
of  superior  and  inferior  nations,  of  which  the  former,  who 
speak  English,  are  to  possess  unlimited  power  over  the 
latter,  to  decide  what  is  good  for  them  and  what  is  bad, 
what  is  licit  and  what  is  forbidden.     And  against  their 
fiat  there  is  to  be  no  appeal.     In  a  word,  it  is  to  be  the 
hegemony  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race. 

It  is  worth  noting  that  Signor  Orlando's  arguments 
were  all  derived  from  the  merits  of  the  case,  not  from 
the  terms  or  the  force  of  the  London  Treaty.  Fiume, 
he  said,  had  besought  Italy  to  incorporate  it,  and  had 
made  this  request  before  the  armistice,  at  a  moment 
when  it  was  risky  to  proclaim  attachments  to  the  king- 

288 


IIALY 

dom.'  The  inhabitants  had  invoked  Mr.  Wilson's  own 
words;  "National  aspirations  must  be  respected.  .  .  .  Self- 
determination  is  not  a  mere  phrase."  "Peoples  and  prov- 
inces are  not  to  be  bartered  about  from  sovereignty  to 
sovereignty  as  if  they  were  mere  chattels  and  pawns  in  a 
game.  Every  territorial  settlement  involved  in  this  war 
must  be  made  in  the  interest  and  for  the  benefit  of  the 
populations  concerned,  and  not  as  a  part  of  any  adjust- 
ment for  compromise  of  claims  among  rival  states."  And 
in  his  address  at  Mount  Vernon  the  President  had  advo- 
cated a  doctrine  which  is  peculiarly  applicable  to  Fiume — 
i.e.: 

"The  settlement  of  every  question,  whether  of  territory, 
of  sovereignty,  of  economic  arrangement,  or  of  political 
relationship,  upon  the  basis  of  the  free  acceptance  of  that 
settlement  by  the  people  immediately  concerned,  and  not 
upon  the  basis  of  material  interest  or  advantage  of  any 
other  nation  or  people  which  may  desire  a  different  settle- 
ment, for  the  sake  of  its  own  exterior  influence  or  mas- 
tery." -  These  maxims  laid  down  by  Mr.  Wilson  im- 
plicitly allot  Fiume  to  Italy. 

Finally  as  to  the  objection  that  Italy's  claims  would 
entail  the  incorporation  of  a  number  of  Slavs,  the  answer 
was  that  the  percentage  was  negligible  as  compared  with 
the  number  of  foreign  elements  annexed  by  other  states. 
The  Poles,  it  was  estimated,  would  have  some  30  per 
cent,  of  aliens,  the  Czechs  not  less,  Rumania  17  per 
cent.,  Jugoslavia  11  per  cent.,  France  4  per  cent.,  and 
Italy  only  3  per  cent. 

In  February  the  Jugoslavs  made  a  strategic  move, 
which  many  admired  as  clever,  and  others  blamed  as 
unwise.     They  proposed  that  all  differences  between  their 

^  The  National  Council  of  Fiume  issued  its  proclamation  before  it  had 
become  known  that  the  battle  of  Vittorio  Veneto  was  begun — i.e.,  October 
30,  1918. 

'^  Speech  delivered  at  Mount  Vernon  on  July  4,  1918. 

289 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

country  and  Italy  should  be  submitted  to  Mr.  Wilson's 
arbitration.  Considering  that  the  President's  mind  was 
made  up  on  the  subject  from  the  beginning,  and  that  he 
had  decided  against  Italy,  it  was  natural  that  the  delega- 
tion in  whose  favor  his  decision  was  known  to  incline 
should  be  eager  to  get  it  accepted  by  their  rivals.  As 
neither  side  was  ignorant  of  what  the  result  of  the  arbi- 
tration would  be,  only  one  of  the  two  could  be  expected 
to  close  with  the  offer,  and  the  most  it  could  hope  by  doing 
this  was  to  embarrass  the  other.  The  Italian  answer  was 
ingenious.  Their  dispute,  they  said,  was  not  with  Serbia, 
who  alone  was  represented  at  the  Conference ;  it  concerned 
Croatia,  who  had  no  official  standing  there,  and  whose 
frontiers  were  not  yet  determined,  but  would  in  due  time 
be  traced  by  the  Conference,  of  which  Italy  was  a  member. 
The  decision  would  be  arrived  at  after  an  exhaustive 
study,  and  its  probable  consequences  to  Europe's  peace 
would  be  duly  considered.  As  extreme  circumspection 
was  imperative  before  formulating  a  verdict,  five  pleni- 
potentiaries would  seem  better  qualified  than  any  one  of 
them,  even  though  he  were  the  wisest  of  the  group.  To 
remove  the  question  from  the  competency  of  the  Con- 
ference, which  was  expressly  convoked  to  deal  with  such 
issues,  and  submit  it  to  an  individual,  would  be  felt  as 
a  slight  on  the  Supreme  Council.  And  so  the  matter 
dropped. 

Signor  Orlando  knew  that  if  he  had  adopted  the  sug- 
gestion and  made  Mr.  Wilson  arbiter,  Italy's  hopes  would 
have  been  promptly  extinguished  in  the  name  of  the 
Fourteen  Points,  and  her  example  held  up  for  all  the  lesser 
states  to  imitate.  The  President  was,  however,  con- 
vinced that  the  Italian  people  would  have  ratified  the 
arrangement  with  alacrity.  It  is  worth  recording  that  he 
was  so  sure  of  his  own  hold  on  the  Italian  masses  that, 
when  urging  Signor  Orlando  to  relinquish  his  demand  for 

290 


ITALY 

Fiume  and  the  Dalmatian  coast,  he  vohmtccred  to  pro- 
vide him  \\ith  a  message  written  by  himself  to  serve  as 
the  Premier's  justification.  vSignor  Orlando  was  to  read 
out  this  document  in  Parliament  in  order  to  make  it  clear 
to  the  nation  that  the  renunciation  had  been  demanded 
by  America,  that  it  would  most  efficaciously  promote 
Italy's  best  interests,  and  should  for  that  reason  be  ratified 
with  alacrity.  Signor  Orlando,  however,  declined  the  cer- 
tificate and  things  took  their  course. 

In  Paris  the  Italian  delegation  made  little  headway. 
Every  one  admired,  esteemed,  and  felt  drawn  toward  the 
first  delegate,  who,  left  to  himself,  would  probably  have 
secured  for  his  countr>^  advantageous  conditions,  even 
though  he  might  be  unable  to  add  Fiume  to  those  secured 
by  the  secret  treaty.  But  he  was  not  left  to  himself.  He 
had  to  reckon  with  his  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  who 
was  as  mute  as  an  o^^ster  and  almost  as  unsociable. 
Baron  Sonnino  had  his  own  policy,  which  was  immutable, 
almost  unutterable.  At  the  Conference  he  vSeemed  un- 
willing to  propound,  much  less  to  discuss  it,  even  with 
those  foreign  colleagues  on  whose  co-operation  or  approval 
its  realization  depended.  He  actually  shunned  delegates 
who  would  fain  have  talked  over  their  common  interests 
in  a  friendly,  informal  way,  and  whose  business  it  was  to 
strike  up  an  agreement.  In  fact,  results  which  could  be 
secured  only  by  persuading  indifferent  or  hostile  people 
and  capturing  their  good-will  he  expected  to  attain  by 
holding  aloof  from  all  and  leading  the  life  of  a  hermit,  one 
might  almost  say  of  a  misanthrope.  One  can  imagine 
the  feelings,  if  one  may  not  reproduce  the  utterances,  of 
English-speaking  officials,  whose  legitimate  desire  for  a 
free  exchange  of  views  with  Italy's  official  spokesman  was 
thwarted  by  the  idiosyncrasies  of  her  own  Alinister  of 
Foreign  Affairs.  In  Allied  circles  Baron  Sonnino  was  dis- 
tinctly unpopular,  and  his  unpopularity  produced  a 
20  291 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

marked  effect  on  the  cause  he  had  at  heart.  He  was 
wholly  destitute  of  friends.  He  had,  it  is  true,  only  two 
enemies,  but  they  were  himself  and  the  foreign  element 
who  had  to  work  with  him.  Italy's  cause  was  therefore 
inadequately  served. 

Several  months'  trial  showed  the  unwisdom  of  Baron 
Sonnino's  attitude,  which  tended  to  defeat  his  own  policy. 
Italy  was  paid  back  by  her  allies  in  her  own  coin,  aloof- 
ness for  aloofness.  After  she  had  declined  the  Jugoslavs' 
ingenious  proposal  to  refer  their  dispute  to  Mr.  Wilson 
the  three  delegates  ^  agreed  among  themselves  to  postpone 
her  special  problems  until  peace  was  signed  with  Ger- 
many, but  Signor  Orlando,  having  got  wind  of  the  matter, 
moved  every  lever  to  have  them  put  into  the  forefront 
of  the  agenda.  He  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  he  would 
not  sign  the  Treaty  unless  his  country's  claims  were  first 
settled,  because  that  document  would  make  the  League 
of  Nations — and  therefore  Italy  as  a  member  of  the 
League — the  guarantor  of  other  nations'  territories, 
whereas  she  herself  had  no  defined  territories  for  others 
to  guarantee.  She  would  not  undertake  to  defend  the 
integrity  of  states  which  she  had  helped  to  create  while 
her  own  frontiers  were  indefinite.  But  in  the  art  of  pro- 
crastination the  Triumvirate  was  unsurpassed,  and,  as  the 
time  drew  near  for  presenting  the  Treaty  to  Germany, 
neither  the  Adriatic,  the  colonial,  the  financial,  nor  the 
economic  problems  on  which  Italy's  future  depended  were 
settled  or  even  broached.  In  the  meanwhile  the  pleni- 
potentiaries in  secret  council,  of  whom  four  or  five  were 
wont  to  deliberate  and  two  to  take  decisions,  had  dis- 
agreed on  the  subject  of  Fiume.  Mr.  Wilson  was  in- 
exorable in  his  refusal  to  hand  the  city  over  to  Italy,  and 
the  various  compromises  devised  by  ingenious  weavers 
of  conflicting  interests  failed  to  rally  the  Italian  delegates, 

*  Of  the  United  States,  France,  and  Great  Britain. 

292 


ITALY 

whose  inspirer  was  the  taciturn  Baron  Sonnino.  The 
ItaHan  press,  by  insisting  on  Fiume  as  a  sine  qua  non  of 
Italy's  approval  of  the  Peace  Treaty  and  by  announcing 
that  it  would  undoubtedly  be  accorded,  had  made  it 
practically  impossible  for  the  delegates  to  recede.  The 
circumstance  that  the  press  was  inspired  by  the  govern- 
ment is  immaterial  to  the  issue.  President  Wilson,  who 
had  been  frequently  told  that  a  word  from  him  to  the 
peoples  of  Europe  would  fire  their  enthusiasm  and  carry 
them  whithersoever  he  wished,  even  against  their  own 
governments,  now  purposed  wielding  this  unique  power 
against  Italy's  plenipotentiaries.  As  we  saw,  he  would 
have  done  this  during  his  sojourn  in  Rome,  but  was  dis- 
suaded by  Baron  Sonnino.  His  intention  now  was  to 
compel  the  delegates  to  go  home  and  ascertain  whether 
their  inflexible  attitude  corresponded  with  that  of  their 
people  and  to  draw  the  people  into  the  camp  of  the 
"idealists."  He  virtually  admitted  this  during  his  con- 
versation with  Signor  Orlando.  What  he  seems  to  have 
overlooked,  however,  is  that  there  are  time  limits  to  every 
policy,  and  that  only  the  same  causes  can  be  set  in  motion 
to  produce  the  same  results.  In  Italy  the  President's 
name  had  a  very  different  sound  in  April  from  the  clarion- 
like tones  it  gave  forth  in  January,  and  the  secret  of  his 
popularity  even  then  was  the  prevalent  faith  in  his  firm 
determination  to  bring  about  a  peace  of  justice,  irrespec- 
tive of  all  separate  interests,  not  merely  a  peace  with 
indulgence  for  the  strong  and  rigor  for  the  weak.  The 
time  when  Mr.  Wilson  might  have  summoned  the  peoples 
of  Europe  to  follow  him  had  gone  by  irrevocably.  It  is 
worth  noting  that  the  American  statesman's  views  about 
certain  of  Italy's  claims,  although  originally  laid  down 
with  the  usual  emphasis  as  immutable,  underwent  con- 
siderable modifications  which  did  not  tend  to  reinforce 
his  authority.     Thus  at  the  outset  he  had  proclaimed  the 

293 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

necessity  of  dividing  Istria  between  the  two  claimant 
nations,  but,  on  further  reflection,  he  gave  way  in  Italy's 
favor,  thus  enabling  Signor  Orlando  to  malve  the  point 
that  even  the  President's  solutions  needed  corrections. 
It  is  also  a  fact  that  when  the  Italian  Premier  insisted 
on  having  the  Adriatic  problems  definitely  settled  before 
the  presentation  of  the  Treaty  to  the  Germans  ^  his 
colleagues  of  France  and  Britain  assured  him  that  this 
reasonable  request  would  be  complied  with.  The  cir- 
cumstance that  this  promise  was  disregarded  did  not 
tend  to  smooth  matters  in  the  Council  of  Five. 

The  decisive  duel  between  Signor  Orlando  and  Mr. 
Wilson  was  fought  out  in  April,  and  the  overt  acts  which 
subsequently  marked  their  tense  relations  were  but  the 
practical  consequences  of  that.  On  the  historic  day  each 
one  set  forth  his  program  with  a  }ic  varietur  attached,  and 
the  President  of  the  United  States  gave  utterance  to  an 
estimate  of  Italian  public  opinion  which  astonished  and 
pained  the  Italian  Premier,  who,  having  contributed  to 
form  it,  deemed  himself  a  more  competent  judge  of  its 
trend  than  his  distinguished  interlocutor.  But  Mr.  Wil- 
son not  only  refused  to  alter  his  judgment,  but  announced 
his  intention  to  act  upon  it  and  issue  an  appeal  to  the 
Italian  nation.  The  gist  of  this  document  was  known  to 
M.  Clemenceau  and  Mr.  Lloyd  George.  It  has  been 
alleged,  and  seems  highly  probable,  that  the  British 
Premier  was  throughout  most  anxious  to  bring  about  a 
workable  compromise.  Proposals  were  therefore  put  for- 
ward respecting  Fiume  and  Dalniatia,  some  of  which  were 
not  inacceptable  to  the  Italians,  who  lodged  counter- 
proposals about  the  others.  On  the  fate  of  these  counter- 
proposals everything  depended. 

On  April  23d  I  was  at  the  Hotel  Edouard  VII,  the  head- 
quarters of  the  Italian  delegation,  discussing  the  outlook 

*  Between  April  5th  and  12th. 

294 


liALY 

and  expecting  to  leam  that  some  agreement  had  been 
reached.  In  an  adjoining  room  the  members  of  the 
delegation  were  sitting  in  conference  on  the  burning  sub- 
ject, painfully  aware  that  time  pressed,  that  the  Damocles's 
sword  of  Air.  Wilson's  declaration  hung  by  a  thread  over 
their  heads,  and  that  a  spirit  of  large  compromise  was 
indispensable.  At  three  o'clock  Mr.  Lloyd  George's 
secretary  brought  the  reply  of  the  Council  of  Three  to 
Italy's  maximum  of  concessions.  Only  one  point  re- 
mained in  dispute,  I  was  told,  but  that  point  hinged  upon 
Fiume,  and,  by  a  strange  chance,  it  was  not  mentioned  in 
the  reply  which  the  secretary  had  just  handed  in.  The 
Italian  delegation  at  once  telephoned  to  the  British 
Premier  asking  him  to  receive  the  Marquis  Imperiali, 
who,  calling  shortly  afterward,  learned  that  Fiume  was 
to  be  a  free  city  and  exempt  from  control.  It  was  when 
the  marquis  had  just  returned  that  I  took  leave  of  my 
hosts  and  received  the  assurance  that  I  should  be  in- 
formed of  the  result.  About  half  an  hour  later,  on 
receipt  of  an  urgent  message,  I  hastened  back  to  the 
Italian  headquarters,  where  consternation  prevailed,  and 
I  learned  that  hardly  had  the  delegates  begun  to  discuss 
the  contentious  clause  when  a  copy  of  the  Temps  was 
brought  in,  containing  Mr. Wilson'  s  appeal  to  the  Italian 
people  "over  the  heads  of  the  Italian  government." 

The  publication  fell  like  a  powerful  explosive.  The 
public  were  at  a  loss  to  fit  in  Mr.  Wilson's  unprecedented 
action  with  that  of  his  British  and  French  colleagues. 
For  if  in  the  morning  he  sent  his  appeal  to  the  newspapers, 
it  was  asked,  why  did  he  allow  his  Italian  colleagues 
to  go  on  examining  a  proposal  on  which  he  manifestly 
assumed  that  they  were  no  longer  competent  to  treat? 
Moreover  a  rational  desire  to  settle  Italy's  Adriatic 
frontiers,  it  w^as  observed,  ought  not  to  have  lessened  his 
concern   about   the   larger   issues   which   his   unwonted 

295 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

procedure  was  bound  to  laise.  And  one  of  these  was 
respect  for  authority,  the  loss  of  which  was  the  taproot  of 
Bolshevism.  Signor  Orlando  replied  to  the  appeal  in  a 
trenchant  letter  which  was  at  bottom  a  reasoned  protest 
against  the  assumed  infallibility  of  any  individual  and, 
in  particular,  of  one  who  had  already  committed  several 
radical  errors  of  judgment.  What  the  Italian  Premier 
failed  to  note  was  the  consciousness  of  overwhelming 
power  and  the  will  to  use  it  which  imparted  its  specific 
mark  to  the  whole  proceeding.  Had  he  realized  this  ele- 
ment, his  subsequent  tactics  would  perhaps  have  run 
on  different  lines. 

The  suddenness  with  which  the  President  carried  out 
his  purpose  was  afterward  explained  as  the  outcome  of 
misinformation.  In  various  Italian  cities,  it  had  been 
reported  to  him,  posters  were  appearing  on  the  walls  an- 
nouncing that  Fiume  had  been  annexed.  Moreover,  it 
was  added,  there  were  excellent  grounds  for  believing  that 
at  Rome  the  Italian  Cabinet  was  about  to  issue  a  decree 
incorporating  it  officially,  whereby  things  would  become 
more  tangled  than  ever.  Some  French  journals  gave 
credit  to  these  allegations,  and  it  may  w^ell  be  that  Mr. 
Wilson,  believing  them,  too,  and  wanting  to  be  beforehand, 
took  immediate  action.  This,  however,  is  at  most  an 
explanation;  it  hardly  justifies  the  precipitancy  with 
which  the  Italian  plenipotentiaries  were  held  up  to  the 
world  as  men  who  were  misrepresenting  their  people. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  careful  inquiry  showed  that  all  those 
reports  which  are  said  to  have  alamied  the  President  were 
groundless.  Mr.  Wilson's  sources  of  information  respect- 
ing the  countries  on  which  he  was  silting  in  judgment  were 
often  as  little  to  be  depended  on  as  presumably  were  the 
decisions  of  the  special  commissions  which  he  and  Mr. 
Lloyd  George  so  unceremoniously  brushed  aside. 

On  the  following  morning  Signcri  Orlando  and  Sonnino 

296 


ITALY 

called  on  the  British  Premier  in  response  to  his  urgent 
invitation.  To  their  surprise  they  found  Mr.  Wilson  and 
M.  Clemenceau  also  awaiting  them,  ready,  as  it  might 
seem,  to  begin  the  discussion  anew,  curious  in  any  case 
to  observe  the  eflect  of  the  declaration.  But  the  Italian 
Premier  burned  his  boats  without  delay  or  hesitation. 
"You  have  challenged  the  authority  of  the  Italian  govern- 
ment," he  said,  "and  appealed  to  the  Italian  people.  Be 
it  so.  It  is  now  become  my  duty  to  seek  out  the  repre- 
sentatives of  my  people  in  Parliament  and  to  call  upon 
them  to  decide  between  Mr.  Wilson  and  me."  The  Presi- 
dent returned  the  only  answer  possible,  "Undoubtedly 
that  is  your  duty."  ' ' I  shall  inform  Parliament  then  that 
we  have  allies  incapable  of  agreeing  among  themselves  on 
matters  that  concern  us  vitally."  Disquieted  by  the 
militant  tone  of  the  Minister,  Mr.  Lloyd  George  uttered 
a  suasive  appeal  for  moderation,  and  expressed  the  hope 
that,  in  his  speech  to  the  Italian  Chamber,  Signor  Orlando 
would  not  forget  to  say  that  a  satisfactory  solution  may 
yet  be  found.  He  would  surely  be  incapable  of  jeopardiz- 
ing the  chances  of  such  a  desirable  consummation.  "I 
will  make  the  people  arbiters  of  the  whole  situation,"  the 
Premier  announced,  "and  in  order  to  enable  them  to 
judge  with  full  knowledge  of  the  data,  I  herewith  ask  your 
permission  to  communicate  my  last  memorandum  to  the 
Council  of  Four.  It  embodies  the  pith  of  the  facts  which 
it  behooves  the  Parliament  to  have  before  it.  In  the  mean- 
time, the  Italian  government  withdraws  from  the  Peace 
Conference. ' '  On  this  the  painful  meeting  terminated  and 
the  principal  Italian  plenipotentiaries  returned  to  Rome. 
In  France  a  section  of  the  press  sympathized  with  the 
Italians,  while  the  government,  and  in  particular  M. 
Clemenceau,  joined  Mr.  Wilson,  who  had  promised  to 
restore  the  sacredness  of  treaties  ^  in  exhorting  Signor 

1  In  his  address  to  the  representatives  of  organized  labor  in  January,  1 9 1 8. 

297 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

Orlando  to  give  up  the  Treaty  of  London.  The  clash 
between  Mr.  Wilson  and  Signor  Orlando  and  the  de- 
parture of  the  Italian  plenipotentiaries  coincided  with  the 
arrival  of  the  Germans  in  Versailles,  so  that  the  Allies 
were  faced  with  the  alternative  of  speeding  up  their  des- 
ultory talks  and  improvising  a  definite  solution  or  giving 
up  all  pretense  at  unanimity  in  the  presence  of  the  enemy. 
One  important  Paris  journal  found  fault  with  Mr.  Wilson 
and  his  "Encyclical,"  and  protested  emphatically  against 
his  way  of  filling  every  gap  in  his  arrangements  by  wedg- 
ing into  it  his  League  of  Nations.  "Can  we  harbor  any 
illusion  as  to  the  net  worth  of  the  League  of  Nations  when 
the  revised  text  of  the  Covenant  reveals  it  shrunken  to 
the  merest  shadow,  incapable  of  thought,  will,  action,  or 
justice  ?  .  .  .  Too  often  have  we  made  sacrifices  to  the  Wil- 
sonian  doctrine."  ^  .  ,  .  Another  press  organ  compared 
Fiume  to  the  Saar  Valley  and  sympathized  with  Italy, 
who,  relying  on  the  solidarity  of  her  allies,  expected  to 
secure  the  cit}^^ 

While  those  wearisome  word-battles — in  which  the  per- 
sonal element  played  an  undue  part — were  being  waged 
in  the  twilight  of  a  secluded  Valhalla,  the  Supreme  Eco- 
nomic Council  decided  that  the  seized  Austrian  vessels 
must  be  pooled  among  all  the  Allies.  When  the  untoward 
consequences  of  this  decision  were  flashed  upon  the  Italians 
and  the  Jugoslavs,  the  rupture  between  them  was  seen  to 
be  injurious  to  both  and  profitable  to  third  parties.  For 
if  the  Austrian  vessels  were  distributed  among  all  the 
Allied  peoples,  the  share  that  would  fall  to  those  two 
would  be  of  no  account.  Now  for  the  first  time  the  ad- 
versaries bestirred  themselves.  But  it  was  not  their  dip- 
lomatists who  took  the  initiative.  Eager  for  their  re- 
spective countries'   share  of  the  spoils  of  war,   certain 

1  L'Echo  dc  Paris,  April  29,  1919. 
^  Le  Gaulois,  April  29,  191 9. 

298 


ITAL^' 

business  men  on  both  sides  met,'  deliberated,  and  worked 
out  an  equitable  accord  which  gave  four-fifths  of  the  ton- 
nage to  Italy  and  the  remainder  to  the  Jugoslavs,  who 
otherwise  would  not  have  obtained  a  single  ship.^  They 
next  set  about  getting  the  resolution  of  the  Economic 
Council  repealed,  and  went  on  with  their  conversations.' 
The  American  delegation  was  friendly,  promised  to  plead 
for  the  repeal,  and  added  that  "if  the  accord  could  be 
extended  to  the  Adriatic  problem  Mr.  Wilson  would  be 
delighted  and  would  take  upon  himself  to  ratify  it  even 
without  the  sanction  of  the  Conference.^  Encouraged  by  this 
promise,  the  delegates  made  the  attempt,  but  as  the 
Italian  Premier  had  for  some  unavowed  reason  limited 
the  intercourse  of  the  negotiators  to  a  single  day,  on  the 
expiry  of  which  he  ordered  the  conversation  to  cease,^ 
they  failed.  Two  or  three  days  later  the  delegates  in 
question  had  quitted  Paris. 

What  this  exchange  of  views  seems  to  have  demon- 
strated to  open-minded  Italians  was  that  the  Jugoslavs, 
whose  reputation  for  obstinacy  was  a  dogma  among  all 
their  adversaries  and  some  of  their  friends,  have  chinks 
in  their  panoply  through  which  reason  and  suasion  may 
penetrate. 

When  the  Italian  withdrew  from  the  Conference  he 
had  ample  reason  for  believing  that  in  his  absence  peace 
could  not  be  signed,  and  many  thought  that,  by  departing, 
he  was  giving  Mr.  Wilson  a  Roland  for  his  Oliver.  But 
this  supposed  tactical  effect  formed  no  part  of  Orlando's 
deliberate  plan.  It  was  a  coincidence  to  be  utilized, 
nothing  more.  iMr.  Wilson  had  left  him  no  choice  but 
to  quit  France  and  solicit  the  verdict  of  his  countrymen. 

^  These  meetings  were  held  from  March  28  till  April  23,  1919. 
2  See  Marco   Borsa's  article  in  //  Secolo,  June  18,  1919;    also  Corriere 
delta  Sera,  June  19,  1919. 
^  From  May  5  to  16,  1919. 

*  //  Secolo,  June  19,  1919.  ^  On  April  23,  1919. 

29Q 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

But  Mr.  Wilson's  colleagues  were  aghast  at  the  thought 
that  the  Pact  of  London,  by  which  none  of  the  Allies 
might  conclude  a  separate  peace,  rendered  it  indispensable 
that  Italy's  recalcitrant  plenipotentiaries  should  be  co- 
signatories, or  at  any  rate  consenting  parties.  About 
this  interpretation  of  the  Pact  there  was  not  the  slightest 
doubt.  Hence  every  one  feared  that  the  signing  of  the 
Peace  Treaty  would  be  postponed  indefinitely  because 
of  the  absence  of  the  Italian  plenipoteniaries  from  the 
Conference.  That  certainly  was  the  belief  of  the  remain- 
ing delegates.  There  was  no  doubt  anywhere  that  the 
presence  or  the  express  assent  of  the  Italians  was  a  sine 
qua  non  of  the  legality  of  the  Treaty.  It  certainly  was 
the  conviction  of  the  French  press,  and  was  borne  out  by 
the  most  eminent  jurists  throughout  the  world. ^  That 
the  Italian  delegates  might  refuse  to  sign,  as  Signor 
Orlando  had  threatened,  until  Italy's  affairs  were  arranged 
satisfactorily  was  taken  for  granted,  and  the  remaining 
members  of  the  inner  Council  set  to  work  to  checkmate 
this  potential  maneuver  and  dispense  with  her  co-opera- 
tion. This  aim  was  attained  during  the  absence  of  the 
Italian  delegation  by  the  decree  that  the  signature  of  any 
three  of  the  Allied  and  Associated  governments  would  be 
deemed  adequate.  The  legality  and  even  the  morality 
of  this  provision  were  challenged  by  many. 


*  "Can  and  will  our  allies  treat  our  absence  as  a  matter  of  no  moment? 
Can  and  will  they  violate  the  formal  undertaking  which  forbids  the  bellig- 
erents to  conclude  a  diplomatic  peace?  .  .  .  The  London  Declaration  pro- 
hibits categorically  the  conclusion  of  any  separate  peace  with  any  enemy 
state.  France  and  England  cannot  sign  peace  with  Germany  if  Italy  does 
not  sign  it.  .  .  .  The  situation  is  grave  and  abnormal,  for  our  allies  it  is 
also  grave  and  abnormal.  Italy  is  isolated,  and  nations,  especially  those 
of  continental  Europe,  which  are  not  overrich,  flee  solitude  as  nature 
abhors  a  vacuum."— Corriere  della  Sera,  April  26,  1919.  Again:  "'The 
Treaty  of  London'  restrains  France  and  England  from  concluding  peace 
without  Italy.  And  Italy  is  minded  not  to  conclude  peace  with  Ocrmany 
before  she  herself  has  received  satisfaction." — Journal  de  Geneve,  April  25, 
1919. 

300 


ITALY 

But  it  may  be  maintained  that  the  imperative  nature 
of  the  task  which  confronted  the  Conference  demanded 
a  chart  of  ideas  and  principles  different  from  that  by 
which  Old  World  diplomacy  had  been  guided  and  that  re- 
spect for  the  letter  of  a  compact  should  not  be  allowed  to 
destroy  its  spirit.  There  is  much  to  be  said  for  this 
contention,  which  was,  however,  rejected  by  Italian 
jurists  as  destructive  of  the  sacredness  of  treaties.  They 
also  urged  that  even  if  it  were  permissible  to  dash  formal 
obstacles  aside  in  order  to  clear  the  path  for  the  further- 
ance of  a  good  cause,  it  is  also  indispensable  that  the 
result  should  be  compassed  with  the  smallest  feasible 
sacrifice  of  principle.  Hopes  were  accordingly  enter- 
tained by  the  Italian  delegates  that,  on  their  return  to 
Paris,  at  least  a  formal  declaration  might  be  made  that 
Italy's  signature  was  indispensable  to  the  validity  of  the 
Treaty.  But  they  were  not,  perhaps  could  not,  be  ful- 
filled at  that  conjuncture. 

Advantage  was  taken  in  other  ways  of  the  withdrawal 
of  Italy's  representatives  from  the  Conference.  For 
example,  a  clause  of  the  Treaty  with  Germany  dealing 
with  reparations  was  altered  to  Italy's  detriment.  An- 
other which  turned  upon  Austro-German  relations  was 
likewise  modified.  Before  the  delegates  left  for  Rome 
it  had  been  settled  that  Germany  should  be  bound  over 
to  respect  Austria's  independence.  This  obligation  was 
either  superfluous,  every  state  being  obliged  to  respect 
the  independence  of  every  other,  or  else  it  had  a  cryptic 
meaning  which  would  only  reveal  itself  in  the  application 
of  the  clause.  As  soon  as  the  Conference  was  freed  from 
the  presence  of  the  Italians  the  formula  was  modified, 
and  Germany  was  plainly  forbidden  to  unite  with  Austria, 
even  though  Austria  should  expressly  desire  amalgama- 
tion. As  this  enactment  runs  directly  counter  to  the 
principle  of  self-determination,  the  Italian  Minister  Crespi 

301 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

raised  his  voice  in  energetic  protest  against  this  and  the 
financial  changes,^  whereupon  the  Triumvirs,  giving  way 
on  the  latter  point,  consented  to  restore  the  primitive 
text  of  the  financial  condition. ^  Germany  is  obliged  to 
supply  France  with  seven  million  tons  of  coal  every  year 
by  way  of  restitution  for  damage  done  during  the  war. 
At  the  price  of  fifty  francs  a  ton,  the  money  value  of  this 
tribute  would  be  three  hundred  and  fifty  million  francs, 
of  which  Italy  would  be  entitled  to  receive  30  per  cent. 
But  during  the  absence  of  the  Italian  representatives  a 
supplementary  clause  was  inserted  in  the  Treaty  ^  con- 
ferring a  special  privilege  on  France  which  renders  Italy's 
claim  of  little  or  no  value.  It  provides  that  Germany 
shall  deliver  annually  to  France  an  amount  of  coal  equal 
to  the  difference  between  the  pre-war  production  of  the 
mines  of  Pas  de  Calais  and  the  Nord,  destroyed  by  the 
enemy,  and  the  production  of  the  mines  of  the  same 
area  during  each  of  the  coming  years,  the  maximum  limit 
to  be  twenty  million  tons.  A^s  this  contribution  takes 
precedence  of  all  others,  and  as  Germany,  owing  to 
insufficiency  of  transports  and  other  causes,  will  probably 
be  unable  to  furnish  it  entirely,  Italy's  claim  is  considered 
practically  valueless. 

The  reception  of  the  delegates  in  Rome  was  a  triumph, 
their  return  to  Paris  a  humiliation.  For  things  had  been 
moving  fast  in  the  meanwhile,  and  their  trend,  as  we  said, 
was  away  from  Italy's  goal.  Public  opinion  in  their  own 
country  likewise  began  to  veer  round,  and  people  asked 
whether  they  had  adopted  the  right  tactics,  whether,  in 
fine,  they  were  the  right  men  to  represent  their  country 
at  that  crisis  of  its  history.  There  was  no  gainsaying 
the  fact  that  Italy  was  completely  isolated  at  the  Con- 


1  On  May  6,  1919,  at  Versailles. 

2  Cf.  Corriere  della  Sera,  May  10,  1919. 

3  Annex  W  of  the  Revised  Treaty. 

302 


ITALY 

ference.  She  had  sacrificed  much  and  had  garnered  in 
relatively  little.  The  Jujjjoslavs  had  offered  her  an 
alliance — although  this  kind  of  partnership  had  originally- 
been  forbidden  by  the  Wilsonian  discipline;  the  offer 
was  rejected  and  she  was  now  certain  of  their  lasting 
enmity.  Venizelos  had  also  made  overtures  to  Baron 
Sonnino  for  an  understanding,  but  they  elicited  no 
response,  and  Italy's  relations  with  Greece  lost  whatever 
cordiality  they  might  have  had.  Between  France  and 
Italy  the  threads  of  friendship  which  companionship  in 
arms  should  have  done  much  to  strengthen  were  strained 
to  the  point  of  snapping.  And  worst,  perhaps,  of  all,  the 
Italian  delegates  had  approved  the  clause  forbidding 
Germany  to  unite  with  Austria. 

That  the  fault  did  not  lie  wholly  in  the  attitude  of 
the  Allies  is  obvious.  The  Italian  delegates'  lack  of 
method,  one  might  say  of  unity,  was  unquestionably  a 
contributory  cause  of  their  failure  to  make  perceptible 
headway  at  the  Conference.  A  curious  and  character- 
istic incident  of  the  slipshod  way  in  which  the  work 
was  sometimes  done  occurred  in  connection  with  the 
disposal  of  the  Palace  Venezia,  in  Rome,  which  had 
belonged  to  Austria,  but  was  expropriated  by  the  Italian 
government  soon  after  the  opening  of  hostilities.  The 
heirs  of  the  Hapsburg  Crown  put  forward  a  claim  to 
proprietary  rights  which  was  traversed  by  the  Italian 
government.  As  the  dispute  was  to  be  laid  before 
the  Conference,  the  Roman  Cabinet  invited  a  juris 
consult  versed  in  these  matters  to  argue  Italy's  case. 
He  duly  appeared,  unfolded  his  claim  congruously  with 
the  views  of  his  government,  but  suddenly  stopped 
short  on  observing  the  looks  of  astonishment  on  the 
faces  of  the  delegates.  It  appears  that  on  the  preced- 
ing day  another  delegate  of  the  Economic  Conference, 
also  an  Italian,  had  unfolded  and  defended  the  contrary 

3<?3 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

thesis — namely,   that  Austria's  heirs  had  inherited  her 
right  to  the  Palace  of  Venezia.^ 

Passing  to  more  momentous  matters,  one  may  per- 
tinently ask  whether  too  much  stress  was  not  laid  by  the 
first  Italian  delegation  upon  the  national  and  sentimental 
sides  of  Italy's  interests,  and  too  little  on  the  others. 
Among  the  Great  Powers  Italy  is  most  in  need  of  raw 
materials.  She  is  destitute  of  coal,  iron,  cotton,  and 
naphtha.  Most  of  them  are  to  be  had  in  Asia  Minor. 
They  are  indispensable  conditions  of  modern  life  and 
progress.  To  demand  a  fair  share  of  them  as  guerdon 
for  having  saved  Europe,  and  to  put  in  her  claim  at  a 
moment  when  Europe  was  being  reconstituted,  could  not 
have  been  construed  as  imperialism.  The  other  Allies 
had  possessed  most  of  those  necessaries  in  abundance  long 
before  the  war.  They  were  adding  to  them  now  as  the 
fruits  of  a  victory  which  Italy's  sacrifices  had  made 
possible.  Why,  then,  should  she  be  left  unsatisfied? 
Bitterly  though  the  nation  was  disappointed  by  failure 
to  have  its  territorial  claims  allowed,  it  became  still 
more  deeply  grieved  when  it  came  to  realize  that  much 
more  important  advantages  might  have  been  secured  if 
these  had  been  placed  in  the  forefront  of  the  nation's 
demands.  Emigration  ground  for  Italy's  surplus  popula- 
tion, which  is  rapidly  increasing,  coal  and  iron  for  her 
industries  might  perhaps  have  been  obtained  if  the 
Italian  plan  of  campaign  at  the  Conference  had  been 
rightly  conceived  and  skilfully  executed.  But  this  realis- 
tic aspect  of  Italy's  interests  was  almost  wliolly  lost  sight 
of  during  the  waging  of  the  heated  and  unfruitful  contests 
for  the  possession  of  town  and  ports,  which,  although  sacred 
symbols  of  Italianism,  could  not  add  anything  to  the 


1  This  incident  was  revealed  by  Enrico  Ferri,  in  his  remarkable  speech 
in  the  Italian  Parliament  on  July  9,  1919.  Cf.  La  Stampa,  July  10,  1919, 
page  2. 

304 


riALY 

economic  resources  which  will  play  such  a  predominant 
part  in  the  future  struggle  for  material  well-being  among 
the  new  and  old  states.  There  was  a  marked  propensity 
among  Italy's  leaders  at  home  and  in  Paris  to  consider 
each  of  the  issues  that  concerned  their  country  as  though 
it  stood  alone,  instead  of  envisaging  Italy's  economic, 
financial,  and  military  position  after  the  war  as  an  in- 
divisible problem  and  proving  that  it  behooved  the  Allies 
in  the  interests  of  a  European  peace  to  solve  it  satisfac- 
torily, and  to  provide  compensation  in  one  direction  for 
inevitable  gaps  in  the  other.  This,  to  my  thinking,  was 
the  fundamental  error  of  the  Italian  and  Allied  statesmen 
for  which  Europe  may  have  to  suffer.  That  Italy's  pol- 
icy cannot  in  the  near  future  return  to  the  lines  on 
which  it  ran  ever  since  the  establishment  of  her  national 
unity,  whatever  her  allies  may  do  or  say,  will  hardly  be 
gainsaid.  Interests  are  decisive  factors  of  foreign  policy, 
and  the  action  of  the  Great  Powers  has  determined 
Italy's  orientation. 

Italy  undoubtedly  gained  a  great  deal  by  the  war,  into 
which  she  entered  mainly  for  the  purpose  of  achieving  her 
unity  and  securing  strong  frontiers.  But  she  signed  the 
Peace  Treaty  convinced  that  she  had  not  succeeded  in 
either  purpose,  and  that  her  allies  were  answerable  for 
her  failure.  It  was  certainly  part  of  their  policy  to  build 
up  a  strong  state  on  her  frontier  out  of  a  race  which  she 
regards  as  her  adversary  and  to  give  it  command  of  some 
of  her  strategic  positions.  And  the  overt  bearing  manner 
in  which  this  policy  was  sometimes  carried  out  left  as 
much  bitterness  behind  as  the  object  it  aimed  at.  It  is 
alleged  that  the  Italian  delegates  were  treated  with  an 
economy  of  consideration  which  bordered  on  something 
much  worse,  while  the  arguments  officially  invoked  to 
non-suit  them  appeared  to  them  in  the  light  of  bitter 
sarcasms.     President  Wilson,  they  complained,  ignored 

305 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

his  far-resonant  principle  of  self-determination  when 
Japan  presented  her  claim  for  Shantung,  but  refused  to 
swerve  from  it  when  Italy  relied  on  her  treaty  rights  in 
Dalmatia.  And  when  the  inhabitants  of  Fiume  voted  for 
union  with  the  mother  country,  the  President  abandoned 
that  principle  and  gave  judgment  for  Jugoslavia  on  other 
grounds.  He  was  right,  but  disappointing,  they  ob- 
served, when  he  told  his  fellow-citizens  that  his  presence 
in  Europe  was  indispensable  in  order  to  interpret  his  con- 
ceptions, for  no  other  rational  being  could  have  construed 
them  thus. 

The  withdrawal  of  the  Italian  delegates  was  construed 
as  an  act  of  insubordination,  and  punished  as  such.  The 
Marquis  de  Viti  de  Varche  has  since  disclosed  the  fact 
that  the  Allied  governments  forthwith  reduced  the  credits 
accorded  to  Italy  during  hostilities,  whereupon  hardships 
and  distress  were  aggravated  and  the  peasantry  over  a 
large  area  of  the  country  suffered  intensely.^  For  Italy 
is  more  dependent  on  her  allies  than  ever,  owing  to  the 
sacrifices  which  she  offered  up  during  the  war,  and  she 
was  made  to  feel  her  dependence  painfully.  The  military 
assistance  which  they  had  received  from  her  was  fraught 
with  financial  and  economic  consequences  which  have  not 
yet  been  realized  by  the  unfortunate  people  who  must 
endure  them.  Italy  at  the  close  of  hostilities  was  bur- 
dened with  a  foreign  debt  of  twenty  milliards  of  lire,  an 
internal  debt  of  fifty  millards,  and  a  paper  circulation  four 
times  more  than  what  it  was  in  pre-war  days.^  Raw 
materials  were  exhausted,  traffic  and  production  were 
stagnant,  navigation   had   almost    ceased,   and   the   ex- 

1  Cf.  The  Morning  Post,  July  9,  1919. 

2  On  July  loth  the  Italian  Finance  Minister,  in  his  financial  statement,  an- 
nounced that  the  total  cost  of  the  war  to  Italy  would  amount  to  one  hun- 
dred milliard  lire.  He  added,  however,  that  her  share  of  the  German  in- 
demnity would  wipe  out  her  foreign  debt,  while  a  progressive  tax  on  all 
but  small  fortunes  would  meet  her  internal  obligations.  Cf.  Corriere  della 
Sera,  July  11  and  12,  1919. 

306 


ITALY 

penditure  of  the  state  had  risen  to  eleven  milliards  a 
ycar.^ 

According  to  the  figures  published  by  the  Statistical 
Society  of  Berne,  the  general  rise  in  prices  attributed  to 
the  war  hit  Italy  much  harder  than  any  of  her  allies.^ 
The  consequences  of  this  and  other  perturbations  were 
sinister  and  immediate.  The  nation,  bereft  of  what  it 
had  been  taught  to  regard  as  its  right,  humiliated  in  the 
persons  of  its  chiefs,  subjected  to  foreign  guidance,  in- 
sufficiently clad,  underfed,  and  with  no  tangible  grounds 
for  expecting  speedy  improvem.ent,  was  seething  with 
discontent.  Frequent  strikes  merely  aggravated  the  gen- 
eral suffering,  which  finally  led  to  riots,  risings,  and  the 
shedding  of  blood.  The  economic,  political,  and  moral 
crisis  was  unprecedented.  The  men  who  drew  Italy  into 
the  war  were  held  up  to  public  opprobrium  because  in 
the  imagination  of  the  people  the  victory  had  cost  them 
more  and  brought  them  in  less  than  neutrality  would 
have  done.  One  of  the  principal  orators  of  the  Opposi- 
tion, in  a  trenchant  discourse  in  the  Italian  Parliament, 
said,  "The  Salandra-Sonnino  Cabinet  led  Italy  into  the 
war  blindfolded."  ^ 

After  the  return  of  the  Italian  delegation  to  Paris  vari- 
ous fresh  combinations  were  devised  for  the  purpose  of 
grappling  with  the  Adriatic  problem.  One  commended 
itself  to  the  Italians  as  a  possible  basis  for  discussion.  In 
principle  it  was  accepted.  A  declaration  to  this  effect 
was  made  by  Signor  Orlando  and  taken  cognizance  of  by 
M.  Clemenceau,  who  undertook  to  lay  the  matter  before 
Mr.  Wilson,  the  sole  arbitrator  in  Italian  affairs.  He 
played  the  part  of  Fate  throughout.     Days  went  by  after 

1  Cf.  Avanti,  July  19,  1919. 

^  Shown  in  percentages,  the  rise  in  the  cost  of  living  was:  United  States, 
220  per  cent.;  England,  240  per  cent.;  Switzerland,  257  per  cent. ;  France, 
368  per  cent.;  Italy,  481  per  cent. 

*  Enrico  Ferri,  on  July  9,  1919.     Cf.  La  Stanipa,  July  10,  1919. 

21  307 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

this  without  bringing  any  token  that  the  Triumvirate 
was  interested  in  the  Adriatic.  At  last  the  ItaHan  Premier 
reminded  his  French  colleague  that  the  latest  proposal 
had  been  accepted  in  principle,  and  the  Italian  plenipo- 
tentiaries were  awaiting  Mr.  Wilson's  pleasure  in  the 
matter.  Accordingly,  M.  Clemenceau  undertook  to  broach 
the  matter  to  the  American  statesman  without  delay. 
The  reply,  which  was  promptly  given,  dismayed  the  Ital- 
ians. It  was  in  the  form  of  one  of  those  interpretations 
which,  becoming  associated  with  Mr.  Wilson's  name, 
shook  public  confidence  in  certain  of  the  statesman-like 
qualities  with  which  he  had  at  first  been  credited.  The 
construction  which  he  now  put  upon  the  mode  of  voting 
to  be  applied  to  Fiume,  including  this  city— in  a  large  dis- 
trict inhabited  by  a  majority  of  Jugoslavs — imparted  to 
the  project  as  the  Italians  had  understood  it  a  wholly  new 
aspect.  They  accordingly  declared  it  inacceptable.  As 
after  that  there  seemed  to  be  nothing  more  for  the  Italian 
Premier  to  do  in  Paris,  he  left,  was  soon  afterward  de- 
feated in  the  Chamber,  and  resigned  together  with  his 
Cabinet.  The  vote  of  the  Italian  Parliament,  which  ap- 
peared to  the  continental  press  in  the  light  of  a  protest 
of  the  nation  against  the  aims  and  the  methods  of  the 
Conference,  closed  for  the  time  being  the  chapter  of  Italy's 
endeavor  to  complete  her  unity,  secure  strong  frontiers, 
and  perpetuate  her  political  partnership  with  France  and 
her  intimate  relations  with  the  Entente.  Thenceforward 
the  English-speaking  states  might  influence  her  overt  acts, 
compel  submission  to  their  behests,  and  generally  exercise 
a  sort  of  guardianship  over  her,  because  they  are  the  dis- 
pensers  of  economic  boons,  but  the  union  of  hearts,  the 
mutual  trust,  the  cement  supplied  by  common  aims  are 
lacking. 

One  of  the  most  telling  arguments  employed  by  Presi- 
dent Wilson  to  dissuade  various  states  from  claiming 

308 


ITALY 

strategic  positions,  and  in  particular  Italy  from  insisting 
on  the  annexation  of  Fiume  and  the  Dalmatian  coast, 
was  the  effective  protection  which  the  League  of  Nations 
would  confer  on  them.^  Strategical  considerations  would, 
it  was  urged,  lose  all  their  value  in  the  new  era,  and  terri- 
torial guaranties  become  meaningless  and  cumbersome 
survivals  of  a  dead  epoch.  That  was  the  principal 
weapon  with  which  he  had  striven  to  parry  the  thrusts 
of  M.  Clemenceau  and  the  touchstone  by  which  he  tested 
the  sincerity  of  all  professions  of  faith  in  his  cherished 
project  of  compacting  the  nations  of  the  world  in  a  vast 
league  of  peace-loving,  law-abiding  communities.  But 
the  faith  of  France's  leaders  differed  little  from  unbelief. 
Guaranties  first  and  the  protection  of  the  League  after- 
ward was  the  French  formula,  around  which  many  fierce 
battles  royal  were  fought.  In  the  end  Mr.  Wilson,  hav- 
ing obtained  the  withdrawal  of  the  demand  for  the  Rhine 
frontier,  gave  in,  and  the  Covenant  was  reinforced  by  a 
compact  which  in  the  last  analysis  is  a  military  under- 
taking, a  unilateral  Triple  Alliance,  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States  undertaking  to  hasten  to  France's  assist- 
ance should  her  territory  be  wantonly  invaded  by  Ger- 
many. The  case  thus  provided  for  is  extremely  improb- 
able. The  expansion  of  Germany,  when  the  auspicious 
hour  strikes,  \\dll  presumably  be  inaugurated  on  wholly 
new  lines,  against  which  armies,  even  if  they  can  be  mo- 
bilized in  time,  will  be  of  little  avail.  But  if  force  were 
resorted  to,  it  is  almost  certain  to  be  used  in  the  direction 
where  the  resistance  is  least — against  France's  ally,  Po- 
land.    This,  however,  is  by  the  way.     The  point  made 


*  At  a  later  date  the  President  reiterated  the  grounds  of  his  decision.  In 
his  Columbus  speech  (September  4,  1919)  he  asserted  that  "Italy  desired 
Fiume  for  strategic  military  reasons,  which  the  League  of  Nations  would 
make  unnecessary."  (The  New  York  Herald  (Paris  edition),  September  6, 
1919.)  But  the  League  did  not  render  strategic  precautions  unnecessary! 
to  France,  ' 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

by  the  Italians  was  that  the  League  of  Nations  being  thus 
admittedly  powerless  to  discharge  the  functions  which 
alone  could  render  strategic  frontiers  unnecessary,  can 
consequently  no  longer  be  relied  upon  as  an  adequate 
protection  against  the  dangers  which  the  possession  of 
the  strongholds  she  claimed  on  the  Adriatic  would  effec- 
tively displace.  Either  the  League,  it  was  argued,  can, 
as  asserted,  protect  the  countries  which  give  up  command- 
ing positions  to  potential  enemies,  or  it  cannot.  In  the 
former  hypothesis  France's  insistence  on  a  military  con- 
vention is  mischievous  and  immoral — in  the  latter  Italy 
stands  in  as  much  need  of  the  precautions  devised  as  her 
neighbor.  But  her  spokesmen  were  still  plied  with  the 
threadbare  arguments  and  bereft  of  the  countervailing 
corrective.  And  faith  in  the  efficacy  of  the  League  was 
sapped  by  the  very  men  who  were  professedly  seeking  to 
spread  it. 

The  press  of  Rome,  Turin,  and  Milan  pointed  to  the 
loyalty  of  the  Italian  people,  brought  out,  they  said,  in 
sharp  relief  by  the  discontent  which  the  exclusive  char- 
acter of  that  triple  military  accord  engendered  among 
them.  As  kinsmen  of  the  French  it  was  natural  for 
Italians  to  expect  that  they  would  be  invited  to  become 
a  party  to  this  league  within  the  League.  As  loyal  allies 
of  Britain  and  France  they  felt  desirous  of  being  admitted 
to  the  alliance.  But  they  were  excluded.  Nor  was  their 
exasperation  allayed  by  the  assurance  of  their  press  that 
this  was  no  alliance,  but  a  state  of  tutelage.  An  alliance, 
it  was  explained,  is  a  compact  by  which  two  or  more 
parties  agree  to  render  one  another  certain  services  under 
given  conditions,  whereas  the  convention  in  question  is  a 
one-sided  undertaking  on  the  part  of  Britain  and  the 
United  States  to  protect  France  if  wantonly  attacked, 
because  she  is  unable  efficaciously  to  protect  herself. 
It  is  a  benefaction.     But  this  casuistry  fell  upon  deaf 

310 


ITALY 

ears.  What  the  people  felt  was  the  disestcem — the  term 
in  vogue  was  stronger— in  which  they  were  held  by  the 
Allies,  whom  they  had  saved  perhaps  from  ruin. 

By  slow  degrees  the  sentiments  of  the  Italian  nation 
underwent  a  disquieting  change.  All  parties  and  classes 
united  in  stigmatizing  the  behavior  of  the  Allies  in  terms 
which  even  the  literary  eminence  of  the  poet  dAnnunzio 
could  not  induce  the  censors  to  let  pass.  "The  Peace 
Treaty,"  wrote  Italy's  most  influential  journal,  "and 
its  correlate  forbode  for  the  near  future  the  Continental 
hegemony  of  France  countersigned  by  the  Anglo-Ameri- 
can alliance."  ^  Another  widely  circulated  and  respected 
organ  described  the  policy  of  the  Entente  as  a  solvent  of 
the  social  fabric,  constructive  in  words,  corrosive  in  acts, 
"mischievous  if  ever  there  was  a  mischievous  policy. 
For  while  raising  hopes  and  whetting  appetites,  it  does 
nothing  to  satisfy  them;  on  the  contrary,  it  does  much  to 
disappoint  them.  In  words — a  struggle  for  liberty,  for 
nations,  for  the  equality  of  peoples  and  classes,  for  the 
well-being  of  all;  in  acts — the  suppression  of  the  most 
elementary  and  constitutional  liberty,  the  overlordship 
of  certain  nations  based  on  the  humiliation  of  others,  the 
division  of  peoples  into  exploiters  and  exploited — the 
sharpening  of  social  differences — the  destruction  of  collec- 
tive wealth,  and  its  accumulation  in  a  few  blood-stained 
hands,  universal  misery,  and  hunger."  - 

Although  it  is  well  understood  that  Italy's  defeat  at  the 
Conference  was  largely  the  handiwork  of  President  Wil- 
son, the  resentment  of  the  Italian  nation  chose  for  its 
immediate  objects  the  representatives  of  France  and 
Britain.  The  American  "associates"  were  strangers,  here 
to-day  and  gone  to-morrow,  but  the  Allies  remain,  and 
if  their  attitude  toward  Italy,  it  was  argued,  had  been 

*  Corriere  delta  Sera,  May  ii,  1919. 
2  La  Slampa,  July  16,  1919. 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

different,  if  their  loyalty  had  been  real,  she  would  have 
fared  proportionately  as  well  as  they,  whatever  the 
American  statesmen  might  have  said  or  done. 

The  Italian  press  breathed  fiery  wrath  against  its 
French  ally,  who  so  often  at  the  Conference  had  met 
Italy's  solicitations  with  the  odious  word  "impossible." 
Even  moderate  organs  of  public  opinion  gave  free  vent 
to  estimates  of  France's  policy  and  anticipations  of  its 
consequences  which  disturbed  the  equanimity  of  European 
statesmen.  "It  is  impossible,"  one  of  these  journals 
wrote,  "for  France  to  become  the  absolute  despot  of 
Europe  without  Italy,  much  less  against  Italy.  What 
transcended  the  powers  of  Richelieu,  who  was  a  lion  and 
fox  combined,  and  was  beyond  the  reach  of  Bonaparte, 
who  was  both  an  eagle  and  a  serpent,  cannot  be  achieved 
by  "Tiger"  Clemenceau  in  circumstances  so  much  less 
favorable  than  those  of  yore.  We,  it  is  true,  are  isolated, 
but  then  France  is  not  precisely  embarrassed  by  the  choice 
of  friends."  The  peace  was  described  as  "Franco-Slav 
domination  with  its  headquarters  in  Prague,  and  a 
branch  office  in  Agram."  M.  Clemenceau  was  openly 
charged  with  striving  after  the  hegemony  of  the  Continent 
for  his  country  by  separating  Germany  from  Austria  and 
surrounding  her  with  a  ring  of  Slav  states — Poland, 
Jugoslavia,  Czechoslovakia,  and  perhaps  the  non-Slav 
kingdom  of  Rumania.  All  these  .states  would  be  in  the 
leading-strings  of  the  French  Republic,  and  Austria  would 
be  linked  to  it  in  a  different  guise.  And  in  order  to 
effect  this  resuscitation  of  the  Hapsburg  state  under  the 
name  of  "Danubian  federation,"  Mr.  Wilson,  it  was 
asserted,  had  authorized  a  deliberate  violation  of  his  own 
principle  of  self-determination,  and  refused  to  Austria  the 
right  of  adopting  the  regime  which  she  preferred.  It 
was,  in  truth,  an  odd  compromise,  these  critics  con- 
tinued, for  an  idealist  of  the  President's  caliber,  on  whose 

312 


ITALY 

every  political  action  the  scrutinizing  gaze  of  the  world 
was  fixed.  One  could  not  account  for  it  as  a  sacrifice 
made  for  a  high  ethical  aim— one  of  those  ends  which, 
according  to  the  old  maxim,  hallows  the  means.  It 
seemed  an  open  response  to  a  secret  instigation  or  impulse 
which  was  unconnected  with  any  recognized  or  avowable 
principle.  Even  the  Socialist  organs  swelled  the  chorus 
of  the  accusers.  Avanti  wrote,  "We  are  Socialists,  yet 
we  have  never  believed  that  the  American  President  with 
his  Fourteen  Points  entered  into  the  war  for  the  highest 
aims  of  humanity  and  for  the  rights  of  peoples,  any  more 
than  we  believe  at  present  that  his  opposition  to  the 
aspirations  of  the  Italian  state  on  the  Adriatic  are  in- 
spired by  motives  of  idealism."  ^ 

The  fate  oi  the  disputed  territories  on  the  Adriatic  was 
to  be  the  outcome  of  self-determination.  Poland's  claims 
were  to  be  left  to  the  self-determination  of  the  Silesian 
and  Ruthenian  populations.  Rumania  was  told  that  her 
suit  must  remain  in  abeyance  until  it  could  be  tested  by 
the  same  principle,  which  would  be  applied  in  the  form 
of  a  plebiscite.  For  self-determination  was  the  corner- 
stone of  the  League  of  Nations,  the  holiest  boon  for  which 
the  progressive  peoples  of  the  world  had  been  pouring 
out  their  life-blood  and  substance  for  nearly  five  years. 
But  when  Italy  invoked  self-determination,  she  was 
promptly  non-suited.  When  Austria  appealed  to  it  she 
was  put  out  of  court.  And  to  crown  all,  the  world  was 
assured  that  the  Fourteen  Points  had  been  triumphantly 
upheld.  This  depravation  of  principles  by  the  triumph 
of  the  little  prudences  of  the  hour  spurred  some  of  the 
more  impulsive  critics  to  ascribe  it  to  influences  less 
respectable  than  those  to  which  it  may  fairly  be  attributed. 

The  directing  Powers  were  hypersensitive  to  the  oft- 
repeated    charge    of    meddling    in    the    internal    affairs 

^  Avanti,  April  27,  1919.     Cf.  Le  Temps,  April  28,  1919. 

313 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

of  other  nations.  They  were  never  tired  of  protesting 
their  abhorrence  of  anything  that  smacked  of  interference. 
Among  the  numerous  facts,  however,  which  they  could 
neither  deny  nor  reconcile  with  their  professions,  the  fol- 
lowing was  brought  forward  by  the  Italians,  who  had  a 
special  interest  to  draw  public  attention  to  it.  It  had  to 
do  with  the  abortive  attempt  to  restore  the  Hapsburg 
monarchy  in  Hungary  as  the  first  step  toward  the  for- 
mation of  a  Danubian  federation.  "It  is  certain,"  wrote 
the  principal  Italian  journal,  "that  the  Archduke  Joseph's 
coup  d'etat  did  not  take  place,  indeed  (given  the  conditions 
in  Budapest)  could  not  take  place,  without  the  Entente's 
connivance.  The  official  communiques  of  Budapest  and 
Vienna,  dated  August  9th,  recount  on  this  point  precise 
details  which  no  one  has  hitherto  troubled  to  deny.  The 
Peidl  government  was  scarcely  three  days  in  power,  and, 
therefore,  was  not  in  a  position  to  deserve  either  trust  or 
distrust,  when  the  heads  of  the  'order-loving  organiza- 
tions' put  forward,  to  justify  the  need  of  a  new  crisis,  the 
complaints  of  the  heads  of  the  Entente  Missions  as  to  the 
anarchy  prevailing  in  Hungary  and  the  urgency  of  finding 
'some  one'  who  could  save  the  country  from  the  abyss. 
Then  a  commission  repaired  to  Alscuth,  where  it  easily 
persuaded  the  Archduke  to  come  to  Budapest.  Here  he 
at  once  visited  all  the  heads  of  missions  and  spent  the 
whole  day  in  negotiations.  'As  a  result  of  negotiations 
with  Entente  representatives,  the  Archduke  Joseph  undertook 
a  solution  of  the  crisis.'  He  then  called  together  the  old 
state  police  and  a  volunteer  army  of  eight  thousand  men. 
The  Rumanian  garrison  was  kept  ready.  The  Peidl  gov- 
ernment naturally  did  not  resist  at  all.  At  10  p.m.  on 
August  7th  all  the  Entente  Missions  held  a  meeting,  to 
which  the  Archduke  Joseph  and  the  new  Premier  were  in- 
vited. General  Gorton  presided.  The  Conference  lasted 
two  hours  and  reached  an  agreement  on  all  questions.     All 

314 


ITALY 

the  heads  of  Missions  assured  the  new  government  of  their 
warmest  support.'"  ' 

Another  case  of  unwarranted  interference  which  stirred 
the  Italians  to  bitter  resentment  turned  upon  the  obhga- 
tion  imposed  on  Austria  to  renounce  her  right  to  unite 
with  Germany.  "It  is  difficult  to  discern  in  the  poHcy  of 
the  Entente  toward  Austria  anything  more  respectable 
than  obstinacy  coupled  with  stupidity,"  wrote  the  same 
journal.  "But  there  is  something  still  worse.  It  is  im- 
possible not  to  feel  indignant  with  a  coalition  which,  after 
having  triumphed  in  the  name  of  the  loftiest  ideas  .  .  . 
treats  German-Austria  no  better  than  the  Holy  Alliance 
treated  the  petty  states  of  Italy.  But  the  Congress  of 
Vienna  acted  in  harmony  with  the  principle  of  legitimism 
which  it  avowed  and  professed,  whereas  the  Paris  Confer- 
ence violates  without  scruple  the  canons  by  which  it 
claims  to  be  guided. 

"Not  a  whit  more  decorous  is  the  intervention  of  the 
Supreme  Council  in  the  internal  affairs  of  Germany — a 
state  which,  according  to  the  spirit  and  the  letter  of  the 
Versailles  Treaty,  is  sovereign  and  not  a  protectorate. 
The  Conference  was  qualified  to  dictate  peace  terms  to 
Germany,  but  it  wanders  beyond  the  bounds  of  its  com- 
petency when  it  construes  those  terms  and  arrogates  to 
itself — on  the  strength  of  forced  and  equivocal  interpreta- 
tions— the  right  of  imposing  upon  a  nation  which  is  neither 
militarily  nor  juridically  an  enemy  a  constitutional  reform. 
Whether  Germany  violates  the  Treaty  by  her  Constitution 
is  a  question  which  only  a  judicial  finding  of  the  League  of 
Nations  can  fairly  determine."  - 

It  would  be  impolitic  to  overlook  and  insincere  to  be- 
little the  effects  of  this  incoherency  upon  the  relations 
between  France  and  Italy.     Public  opinion  in  the  Penin- 

^  Corriere  delta  Sera,  August  9,  1919. 
2  Qorri^re  delta  Sera,  September  3,  1919. 

3^5 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

sula  characterized  the  attitude  of  France  as  deliberately 
hostile.  The  Italians  at  the  Conference  eagerly  scruti- 
nized every  act  and  word  of  their  French  colleagues,  with 
a  view  to  discovering  grounds  for  dispelling  this  view. 
But  the  search  is  reported  to  have  been  worse  than  vain. 
It  revealed  data  which,  although  susceptible  of  satisfac- 
tory explanations,  would,  if  disclosed  at  that  moment,  have 
aggravated  the  feeling  of  bitterness  against  France,  which 
was  fast  gathering.  Signor  Orlando  had  recourse  to  the 
censor  to  prevent  indiscretions,  but  the  intuition  of  the 
masses  triumphed  over  repression,  and  the  existing  tense- 
ness merged  into  resentment.  The  way  in  which  Italians 
accounted  for  M.  Clemenceau's  attitude  was  this.  Al- 
though Italy  has  ceased  to  be  the  important  political 
factor  she  once  was  when  the  Triple  Alliance  was  in  being, 
she  is  still  a  strong  continental  Power,  capable  of  placing 
a  more  numerous  army  in  the  field  than  her  republican 
sister,  and  her  population  continues  to  increase  at  a  high 
rate.  In  a  few  years  she  will  have  outstripped  her  rival. 
France,  too,  has  perhaps  lost  those  elements  of  her  power 
and  prestige  which  she  derived  from  her  alliance  with 
Russia.  Again,  the  Slav  ex-ally,  Russia,  may  become  the 
enemy  of  to-morrow.  In  view  of  these  contingencies 
France  must  create  a  substitute  for  the  Rumanian  and 
Italian  allies.  And  as  these  have  been  found  in  the  new 
Slav  states,  Poland,  Czechoslovakia,  and  Jugoslavia,  she 
can  afford  to  dispense  with  making  painful  sacrifices  to 
keep  Italy  in  countenance. 

A  trivial  incident  which  affords  a  glimpse  of  the  spirit 
prevailing  between  the  two  kindred  peoples  occurred 
at  St.-Germain-en-Laye,  where  the  Austrian  delegates 
were  staying.  They  had  been  made  much  of  in  Vienna 
by  the  Envoy  of  the  French  Republic  there,  M.  Allize, 
whose  mission  it  was  to  hinder  Austria  from  uniting 
with  the  Reich.     Italy's  policy  was,  on  the  contrary,  to 

316 


ITALY 

apply  Mr.  Wilson's  principle  of  self-determination  and 
allow  the  Austrians  to  do  as  they  pleased  in  that  respect. 
A  fervent  advocate  of  the  French  orthodox  doctrine — a 
publicist — repaired  to  the  Austrian  headquarters  at  St.- 
Germain  for  the  purpose,  it  is  supposed,  of  discussing 
the  subject.  Now  intercourse  of  any  kind  between  pri- 
vate individuals  and  the  enemy  delegates  was  strictly 
forbidden,  and  when  M.  X.  presented  himself,  the  Italian 
officer  on  duty  refused  him  admission.  He  insisted. 
The  officer  was  inexorable.  Then  he  produced  a  written 
permit  signed  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Conference,  M. 
Dutasta.  How  and  why  this  exception  was  made  in  his 
favor  when  the  rule  was  supposed  to  admit  of  no  excep- 
tions was  not  disclosed.  But  the  Italian  officer,  equal 
to  the  occasion,  took  the  ground  that  a  military  prohibition 
cannot  be  canceled  by  a  civilian,  and  excluded  the 
would-be  visitor. 

The  general  trend  of  France's  European  policy  was 
repugnant  to  Italy.  She  looked  on  it  as  a  well-laid 
scheme  to  assume  a  predominant  role  on  the  Continent. 
That,  she  believed,  was  the  ultimate  purpose  of  the  veto 
on  the  union  of  Austria  and  Germany,  of  the  military 
arrangements  with  Britain  and  the  United  States,  and  of 
much  else  that  was  obnoxious  to  Italy.  Austria  was  to 
be  reconstituted  according  to  the  federative  plans  of  the 
late  Archduke  Franz  Ferdinand,  to  be  made  stronger 
than  before  as  a  counterpoise  to  Italy,  and  to  be  at  the 
beck  and  call  of  France.  Thus  the  friend,  ally,  sister  of 
yesterda}'-  became  the  potential  enemy  of  to-morrow. 
That  was  the  refrain  of  m.ost  of  the  Italian  journals,  and 
none  intoned  it  more  fervently  than  those  which  had  been 
foremost  in  bringing  their  country  into  the  war.  One 
of  these,  a  Conservative  organ  of  Lombardy,  wrote: 
"Until  yesterday,  we  might  have  considered  that  two 
paths  lay  open  before  us,  that  of  an  alliance  with  France 

317 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

and  that  of  an  independent  policy.  But  we  can  think 
so  no  longer.  To  offer  our  friendship  to-day  to  the  peo- 
ple who  have  already  chosen  their  own  road  and  estab- 
lished their  solidarity  with  our  enemies  of  yesterday  and 
to-morrow  would  not  be  to  strike  oat  a  policy,  but  to 
decide  on  an  unseemly  surrender.  It  would  be  tanta- 
mount to  reproducing  in  an  aggravated  form  the  situation 
we  occupied  in  the  alliance  with  Germany.  Once  again 
we  should  be  engaged  in  a  partnership  of  which  one  of  the 
partners  was  in  reality  our  enemy.  France  taking  the 
place  of  Germany,  and  Jugoslavia  that  of  Austria,  the 
situation  of  the  old  Triple  Alliance  would  be  not  merely 
reproduced,  but  made  worse  in  the  reproduction,  because 
the  Triplice  at  least  guaranteed  us  against  a  conflict  which 
v/e  had  grounds  for  apprehending,  whereas  the  new  alliance 
would  tie  our  hands  for  the  sake  of  a  little  Balkan  state 
which,  single-handed,  we  are  well  able  to  keep  in  its  place. 

"We  have  had  enough  of  a  policy  which  has  hitherto 
saddled  us  with  all  the  burdens  of  the  alliance  without 
bestowing  on  us  any  advantage — which  has  constrained 
us  to  favor  all  the  peoples  whose  expansion  dovetailed 
with  French  schemes  and  to  combat  or  neglect  those 
others  whose  consolidation  corresponded  to  our  interests 
— which  has  led  us  to  support  a  great  Poland  and  a  great 
Bohemia  and  to  combat  the  Ukraine,  Hungary,  Bulgaria, 
Rumania,  Spain,  to  whose  destinies  the  French,  but  not 
we,  were  indifferent."  ^  A  press  organ  of  Bologna  de- 
nounced the  atrocious  and  ignominious  sacrifice  "which 
her  allies  imposed  on  Italy  by  means  of  economic  black- 
mailing and  violence  with  a  whip  in  one  hand  and  a 
chunk  of  bread  in  the  other."  " 

Sharp  comments  were  provoked  by  the  heavy  tax  on 
strangers  in  Tunisia  imposed  by  the  French  government,^ 

^  Quoted  in  La  Stampa  of  July  20,  19 19.  *  Ibidem. 

^  Corriere  d' Italia,  June  29,  1919. 

318 


ITALY 

on  strangers,  mostly  Italians,  who  theretofore  had  enjoyed 
the  same  rights  as  the  French  and  Tunisians.  "Sud- 
denly," writes  the  principal  Italian  journal,  "and  just 
when  it  was  hoped  that  the  common  sacrifices  they  had 
made  had  strengthened  the  ties  between  the  two  nations, 
the  governor  of  Tunisia  issued  certain  orders  which 
endangered  the  interests  of  foreigners  and  the  effects  of 
which  will  be  felt  mainly  by  Italians,  of  whom  there  are 
one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  in  Tunisia.^  First 
there  came  an  order  forbidding  the  use  of  any  language 
but  French  in  the  schools.  Now  the  tax  referred  to  in 
the  House  of  Lords  gives  the  Tunisian  government  power 
to  levy  an  impost  on  the  buying  and  selling  of  property 
in  Tunisia.  The  new  tax,  which  is  to  be  levied  over  and 
above  pre-existing  taxes,  ranged  from  59  per  cent,  of  the 
value  when  it  is  not  assessed  at  a  higher  sum  than  one 
hundred  thousand  lire  to  80  per  cent,  when  its  estimated 
value  is  more  than  five  hundred  thousand  lire."  The 
article  terminates  with  the  remark  that  boycotting  is 
hardly  a  suitable  epilogue  to  a  war  waged  for  common 
ideals  and  interests. 

These  manifestations  irritated  the  French  and  were 
taken  to  indicate  Italy's  defection.  It  was  to  no  purpose 
that  a  few  level-headed  men  pointed  out  that  the  French 
government  was  largely  answerable  for  the  state  of  mind 
complained  of.  "Pertinax,"  in  the  Echo  de  Paris,  wrote 
"that  the  alliance,  in  order  to  subsist  and  flourish,  should 
have  retained  its  character  as  an  Anti-German  League, 
whereas  it  fell  into  the  error  of  masking  itself  as  a  Society 
of  Nations  and  arrogated  to  itself  the  right  of  bringing 
before  its  tribunal  all  the  quarrels  of  the  planet."  ^  Italy's 
allies  undoubtedly  did  much  to  forfeit  her  sympathies 
and  turn  her  from  the  alliance.     It  was  pointed  out  that 

^  Cf.  Modern  Jialyjnly  12,  1919  (page  298). 
^  Echo  de  Paris,  July  7,  1919. 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

when  the  French  troops  arrived  in  Italy  the  Bulletin  of 
the  Italian  command  eulogized  their  efforts  almost  daily, 
but  when  the  Italian  troops  went  to  France,  the  com- 
miiniques  of  the  French  command  were  most  chary  of 
allusions  to  their  exploits,  yet  the  Italian  army  con- 
tributed more  dead  to  the  French  front  than  did  the 
French  army  to  the  Italian  front.  ^  At  the  Peace  Con- 
ference, as  we  saw,  when  the  terms  with  Germany  were 
being  drafted,  Italy's  problems  were  set  aside  on  the 
grounds  that  there  was  no  nexus  between  them.  The 
Allies'  interests,  which  were  dealt  with  as  a  whole  during 
the  war,  were  divided  after  the  armistice  into  essential 
and  secondary  interests,  and  those  of  Italy  were  relegated 
to  the  latter  class.  Subsequently  France,  Britain,  and 
the  United  States,  without  the  co-operation  or  fore- 
knowledge of  their  Italian  friends,  struck  up  an  alliance 
from  which  they  excluded  Italy,  thereby  vitiating  the 
only  arguments  that  could  be  invoked  in  favor  of  such  a 
coalition.  When  peace  was  about  to  be  signed  they  one- 
sidedly  revoked  the  treaty  which  they  had  concluded  in 
London,  rendering  the  consent  of  all  Allies  necessary  to 
the  validity  of  the  document,  and  decreed  that  Italy's 
abstention  would  make  no  difference.  When  the  instru- 
ment was  finally  signed,  Mr.  Wilson  returned  to  the 
United  States,  Mr.  Lloyd  George  to  England,  and  the 
Marquis  of  Saionji  to  Japan,  without  having  settled  any 
of  Italy's  problems.  Italy,  her  needs,  her  claims,  and  her 
policy  thus  appear  as  matters  of  little  account  to  the 
Great  Powers.  Naturally,  the  Italian  people  were  dis- 
appointed, and  desirous  of  seeking  new  friends,  the  old 
ones  having  forsaken  them. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  consequences 
which  this  attitude  of  the  Allies  toward  Italy  may  have 
on    European    politics    generally.     Her    most    eminent 

1  Cf.  "An  Italian  Expose,"  published  by  The  Morning  Post,  July  5,  1919. 

320 


ITALY 

statesman,  Signor  Tittoni,  who  succeeded  Baron  Sonnino, 
transcending  his  country's  mortifications,  exerted  him- 
self tactfully  and  not  unsuccessfully  to  lubricate  the 
mechanism  of  the  alliance,  to  ease  the  dangerous  friction 
and  to  restore  the  tone.  And  he  seems  to  have  accom- 
plished in  these  respects  everything  which  a  sagacious 
statesman  could  do.  But  to  arrest  the  operation  of 
psychological  laws  is  beyond  the  power  of  any  individual. 
In  order  to  appreciate  the  Italian  point  of  view,  it  is  no- 
wise necessary  to  approve  the  exaggerated  claims  put 
forward  by  her  press  in  the  spring  of  1919.  It  is  enough 
to  admit  that  in  the  light  of  the  Wilsonian  doctrine  they 
were  not  more  incompatible  with  that  doctrine  than  the 
claims  made  by  other  Powers  and  accorded  by  the 
Supreme  Council. 

To  sum  up,  Italy  acquired  the  impression  that  associa- 
tion with  her  recent  allies  means  for  her  not  only  sacrifices 
in  their  hour  of  need,  but  also  further  sacrifices  in  their 
hour  of  triumph.  She  became  reluctantly  convinced 
that  they  regard  interests  which  she  deems  vital  to  herself 
as  unconnected  with  their  own.  And  that  was  unfortu- 
nate. If  at  some  fateful  conjuncture  in  the  future  her 
allies  on  their  part  should  gather  the  impression  that 
she  has  adjusted  her  policy  to  those  interests  which  are  so 
far  removed  from  theirs,  they  will  have  themselves  to 
blame. 


IX 

JAPAN 

j^MONG  the  solutions  of  the  burning  questions  which 
exercised  the  ingenuity  and  tested  the  good  faith  of 
the  leading  Powers  at  the  Peace  Conference,  none  was 
more  rapidly  reached  there,  or  more  bitterly  assailed  out- 
side, than  those  in  which  Japan  was  specially  interested. 
The  storm  that  began  to  rage  as  soon  as  the  Supreme 
Council's  decision  on  the  Shantung  issue  became  known 
did  not  soon  subside.  Far  from  that,  it  threatened  for 
a  time  to  swell  into  a  veritable  hurricane.  This  problem, 
like  most  of  those  which  were  submitted  to  the  forum  of 
the  Conference,  may  be  envisaged  from  either  of  two 
opposite  angles  of  survey;  from  that  of  the  future  society 
of  justice-loving  nations,  whose  members  are  to  forswear 
territorial  aggrandizement,  special  economic  privileges, 
and  political  sway  in,  or  at  the  expense  of,  other  countries ; 
or  from  the  traditional  point  of  view,  which  has  always 
prevailed  in  international  politics  and  which  cannot  be 
better  described  than  by  Signor  Salandra's  well-known 
phrase  "sacred  egotism."  Viewed  in  the  former  light, 
Japan's  demand  for  Shantung  was  undoubtedly  as  much 
a  stride  baclcward  as  were  those  of  the  United  States  and 
France  for  the  Moaroe  Doctrine  and  the  Saar  Valley  re- 
spectively. But  as  the  three  Great  Powers  had  set  the 
example,  Japan  was  resolved  from  the  outset  to  rebel 
against  any  decree  relegating  her  to  the  second-  or  third- 
class  nations.     The  position  of  equality  occupied  by  her 

322 


JAPAN 

government  among  the  governments  of  other  Great 
Powers  did  not  extend  to  the  Japanese  nation  among  the 
other  nations.  But  her  statesmen  refused  to  admit  this 
artificial  inferiority  as  a  reason  for  descending  another 
step  in  the  international  hierarchy  and  they  invoked  the 
principle  of  which  Britain,  France,  and  America  had 
already  taken  advantage. 

The  Supreme  Council,  like  Janus  of  old,  possessed  two 
faces,  one  altruistic  and  the  other  egotistic,  and,  also  like 
that  son  of  Apollo,  held  a  key  in  its  right  hand  and  a  rod 
in  its  left.  It  applied  to  the  various  states,  according  to 
its  own  interest  or  convenience,  the  principles  of  the  old 
or  the  new  Covenant,  and  would  fain  have  dispossessed 
Japan  of  the  fruits  of  the  campaign,  and  allotted  to  her 
the  role  of  working  without  reward  in  the  vineyard  of 
the  millennium,  were  it  not  that  this  policy  was  excluded 
by  reasons  of  present  expediency  and  previous  commit- 
ments. The  expediency  was  represented  by  President 
Wilson's  determination  to  obtain,  before  returning  to 
Washington,  some  kind  of  a  compact  that  might  be  de- 
scribed as  the  constitution  of  the  future  society  of  nations, 
and  by  his  belief  that  this  instrument  could  not  be  ob- 
tained without  Japan's  adherence,  which  was  dependent 
on  her  demand  for  Shantung  being  allowed.  And  the  pre- 
vious commitments  were  the  secret  compacts  concluded 
by  Japan  with  Britain,  France,  Russia,  and  Italy  before 
the  United  States  entered  the  war. 

Nippon's  role  in  the  war  and  the  circumstances  that 
shaped  it  are  scarcely  realized  by  the  general  public.  They 
have  been  purposely  thrust  in  the  background.  And  yet 
a  knowledge  of  them  is  essential  to  those  who  wish  to 
understand  the  significance  of  the  dispute  about  Shan- 
tung, which  at  bottom  was  the  problem  of  Japan's  inter- 
national status.  Before  attempting  to  analyze  them, 
however,  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  remark  that  during  the 

•22  323 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

French  press  campaign  conducted  in  the  years  191 5-1 6, 
with  the  object  of  determining  the  Tokio  Cabinet  to  take 
part  in  the  mihtary  operations  in  Europe,  the  question 
of  motive  was  discussed  with  a  degree  of  tactlessness  which 
it  is  difficult  to  account  for.  It  was  affirmed,  for  exam- 
ple, that  the  Mikado's  people  would  be  overjoyed  if  the 
Allied  governments  vouchsafed  them  the  honor  of  par- 
ticipating in  the  great  civilizing  crusade  against  the  Cen- 
tral Empires.  That  was  proclaimed  to  be  such  an  envi- 
able privilege  that  to  pay  for  it  no  sacrifice  of  men  or 
money  would  be  exorbitant.  Again,  the  degree  to  which 
Germany  is  a  menace  to  Japan  was  another  of  the  texts 
on  which  Entente  publicists  relied  to  scare  Nippon  into 
drastic  action,  as  though  she  needed  to  be  told  by  Euro- 
peans where  her  vital  interests  lay,  from  what  quarters 
they  were  jeopardized,  and  how  they  might  be  safe- 
guarded most  successfully.  So  much  for  the  question  of 
tact  and  form.  Japan  has  never  accepted  the  doctrine 
of  altruism  in  politics  which  her  Western  allies  have  so 
zealously  preached.  Until  means  have  been  devised  and 
adopted  for  substituting  moral  for  military  force  in  the 
relations  of  state  with  state,  the  only  reconstruction  of 
the  world  in  which  the  Japanese  can  believe  is  that  which 
is  based  upon  treaties  and  the  pledged  word.  That  is 
the  principle  which  underlies  the  general  policy  and  the 
present  strivings  of  our  Far  Eastern  ally. 

One  of  the  characteristic  traits  of  all  Nippon's  dealings 
with  her  neighbors  is  loyalty  and  trustworthiness.  Her 
intercourse  with  Russia  before  and  after  the  Manchurian 
campaign  offers  a  shining  example  of  all  the  qualities 
which  one  would  postulate  in  a  true-hearted  neighbor 
and  a  stanch  and  chivalrous  ally.  I  had  an  opportunity 
of  watching  the  development  of  the  relations  between  the 
two  governments  for  many  years  before  they  quarreled, 
and  subsequently  down  to  19 14,  and  I  can  state  that  the 

32d 


JAPAN 

praise  lavished  by  the  Tsar's  Ministers  on  their  Japanese 
colleagues  was  well  deserved.  And  for  that  reason  it 
may  be  taken  as  an  axiom  that  whatever  developments 
the  present  situation  may  bring  forth,  the  Empire  of  Nip- 
pon will  carry  out  all  its  engagements  with  scrupulous 
exactitude,  in  the  spirit  as  well  as  the  letter. 

To  be  quite  frank,  then,  the  Japanese  are  what  we  should 
term  realists.  Consequently  their  foreign  policy  is  in- 
spired by  the  maxims  which  actuated  all  nations  down 
to  the  year  19 14,  and  still  move  nearly  all  of  them  to-day. 
In  fact,  the  only  Powers  that  have  fully  and  authorita- 
tively repudiated  them  as  yet  are  Bolshevist  Russia,  and 
to  a  large  extent  the  United  States.  Holding  thus  to  the 
old  dispensation,  Japan  entered  the  war  in  response  to  a 
definite  demand  made  by  the  British  government.  The 
day  before  Britain  declared  war  against  Germany  the 
British  Ambassador  at  Tokio  officially  inquired  whether 
his  government  could  count  upon  the  active  co-operation 
of  the  Mikado's  forces  in  the  campaign  about  to  begin. 
On  August  4th  Baron  Kato,  having  in  the  meanwhile 
consulted  his  colleagues,  answered  in  the  affirmative. 
Three  days  later  another  communication  reached  Tokio 
from  London,  requesting  the  immediate  co-operation  of 
Japan,  and  on  the  following  day  it  was  promised.  The 
motive  for  this  haste  was  credibly  asserted  to  be  Britain's 
apprehension  lest  Germany  should  transfer  Kiaochow  to 
China,  and  reserve  to  herself,  in  virtue  of  Article  V  of 
the  Convention  of  1898,  the  right  of  securing  after  the 
war  "a  more  suitable  territory"  in  the  Middle  Empire 
or  Republic.  Thereupon  they  began  operations  which 
were  at  first  restricted  to  the  China  seas,  but  were 
afterward  extended  to  the  Pacific  and  Indian  Oceans, 
and  finally  to  the  Mediterranean.  The  only  task  that 
fell  to  their  lot  on  land  was  that  of  capturing  Kiaochow. 
But  whatever  they  set  their  hands  to  they  carried  out 

325 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

thoroughly,  and  to  the  complete  satisfaction  of  their 
European  allies. 

For  many  years  the  people  of  Nippon  have  been  wend- 
ing slowly,  but  with  tireless  perseverance  and  unerring 
instinct,  toward  their  far-off  goal,  which  to  the  unbiased 
historian  will  seem  not  merely  legitimate  but  praise- 
worthy. Their  intercourse  with  Russia  was  the  story  of 
one  long  laborious  endeavor  to  found  a  common  concern 
which  should  enable  Japan  to  make  headway  on  her  mis- 
sion. Russia  was  just  the  kind  of  partner  whose  co- 
operation was  especially  welcome,  seeing  that  it  could 
be  had  without  the  hitches  and  set-backs  attached  to 
that  of  most  other  Great  Powers.  The  Russians  were 
never  really  intolerant  in  racial  matters,  nor  dangerous 
in  commercial  rivalry.  They  intermarried  freely  with  all 
the  so-called  inferior  races  and  tribes  in  the  Tsardom,  and 
put  all  on  an  equal  footing  before  the  law.  Twenty-three 
years  ago  I  paid  a  visit  to  my  friend  General  Tomitch, 
the  military  governor  of  Kars,  and  I  found  myself  sitting 
at  his  table  beside  the  Prefect  of  the  city,  who  was  a 
Mohammedan.  The  individual  Russian  is  generally  free 
from  racial  prejudices;  he  has  no  sense  of  the  "yellow 
peril,"  and  no  objection  to  receive  the  Japanese  as  a  com- 
rade, a  colleague,  or  a  son-in-law. 

And  the  advances  made  by  Ito  and  others  would  have 
been  reciprocated  by  Witte  and  Lamsdorff  were  it  not 
that  the  Tsar,  interested  in  Bezobrazoff's  Yalu  venture, 
subordinated  his  policy  to  those  vested  interests,  and  com- 
pelled Japan  to  fight.  The  master-idea  of  the  policy  of 
Ito,  with  whom  I  had  two  interesting  conversations  on 
the  subject,  was  to  strike  up  a  close  friendship  with  the 
Tsardom,  based  on  community  of  durable  interests,  and 
to  bespeak  Russia's  help  for  the  hour  of  storm  and  stress 
which  one  day  might  strike.  The  Tsar's  government  was 
inspired  by  analogous  motives.    Before  the  war  was  ter- 

3  20 


JAPAN 

minated  I  repaired  to  London  on  belialf  of  Russia,  in 
order  to  propose  to  the  Japanese  government,  in  addition 
to  the  treaty  of  peace  which  was  about  to  be  discussed  at 
Portsmouth,  an  offensive  and  defensive  alliance,  and  to 
ask  that  Prince  Ito  be  sent  as  first  plenipotentiary,  in- 
vested with  full  powers  to  conclude  such  a  treaty. 

jM.  Izvolslcy's  policy  toward  Japan,  frank  and  states- 
man-like, had  an  offensive  and  a  defensive  alliance  for 
its  intended  culmination,  and  the  treaties  and  conven- 
tions which  he  actually  concluded  with  Viscount  Motono, 
in  drafting  which  I  played  a  modest  part,  amounted 
almost  to  this.  The  Tsar's  opposition  to  the  concessions 
which  represented  Russia's  share  of  the  compromise 
was  a  tremendous  obstacle,  which  only  the  threat  of  the 
Minister's  resignation  finally  overcame.  And  Izvolsky's 
energy  and  insistence  hastened  the  conclusion  of  a  treaty 
between  them  to  maintain  and  respect  the  status  quo  in 
Manchuria,  and,  in  case  it  was  menaced,  to  concert 
with  each  other  the  measures  they  might  deem  necessary 
for  the  maintenance  of  the  status  quo.  And  it  was  no 
longer  stipulated,  as  it  had  been  before,  that  these  meas- 
ures must  have  a  pacific  character.  They  were  pre- 
pared to  go  farther.  And  I  may  now  reveal  the  fact 
that  the  treaty  had  a  secret  clause,  providing  for  the 
action  which  Russia  afterward  took  in  Mongolia. 

These  transactions  one  might  term  the  first  act  of  the 
international  drama  which  is  still  proceeding.  They 
indicate,  if  they  did  not  shape,  the  mold  in  which  'the 
bronze  of  Japan's  political  program  was  cast.  It  neces- 
sarily differed  from  other  politics,  although  the  maxirns 
underlying  it  were  the  same.  Japan,  having  become  a 
Great  Power  after  her  war  with  China,  was  slowly  develop- 
ing into  a  world  Power,  and  hoped  to  establish  her  claim 
to  that  position  px^e  day.  It  was  against  that  day  that 
she  would  fain  have  acquired  a. puissant  and  trustworthy 

327 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

ally,  and  she  left  nothing  undone  to  deserve  the  whole- 
hearted support  of  Russia.  In  the  historic  year  of  1914, 
many  months  before  the  storm-cloud  broke,  the  War 
Minister  Sukhomlinoff  transferred  nearly  all  the  garrisons 
from  Siberia  to  Europe,  because  he  had  had  assurances 
from  Japan  which  warranted  him  in  thus  denuding  the 
eastern  border  of  troops.  During  the  campaign,  when 
the  Russian  offensive  broke  down  and  the  armies  of  the 
enemy  were  driving  the  Tsar's  troops  like  sheep  before 
them,  Japan  hastened  to  the  assistance  of  her  neighbor, 
to  whom  she  threw  open  her  military  arsenals,  and  many 
private  establishments  as  well.  And  when  the  Petrograd 
Cabinet  was  no  longer  able  to  meet  the  financial  liabilities 
incurred,  the  Mikado's  advisers  devised  a  generous 
arrangement  on  lines  which  brought  both  countries  into 
still  closer  and  more  friendly  relations. 

The  most  influential  daily  press  organ  in  the  Tsardom, 
the  Novoye  Vremya,  wrote:  "The  war  with  Germany 
has  supplied  our  Asiatic  neighbor  with  an  opportunity 
of  proving  the  sincerity  of  her  friendly  assurances.  She 
behaves  not  merely  like  a  good  friend,  but  like  a  stanch 
military  ally.  ...  In  the  interests  of  the  future  tranquil 
development  of  Japan  a  more  active  participation  of  the 
Japanese  is  requisite  in  the  war  of  the  nations  against 
the  world-beast  of  prey.  An  alliance  with  Russia  for 
the  attainment  of  this  object  would  be  an  act  of  immense 
historic  significance."  ^ 

Ever  since  her  entry  into  the  community  of  progressive 
nations,  Japan's  main  aspiration  and  striving  has  been  to 
play  a  leading  and  a  civilizing  part  in  the  Far  East,  and 
in  especial  to  determine  China  by  advice  and  organization 
to  move  into  .line  with  herself,  adopt  Western  methods 
and  apply  them  to  Far-Eastern  aims.  And  this  might 
well   seem  a  legitimate  as  well  as  a  profitable  policy, 

^Novoye  Vremya,  June  i2>-'^(>,  1915- 

328 


JAPAN 

and  a  task  as  noble  as  most  oi  those  to  which  the  world 
is  wont  to  pay  a  tribute  of  high  praise.  It  appeared  all 
the  more  licit  that  the  Powers  of  Europe,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  Russia,  had  denied  full  political  rights  to  the 
colored  alien.  He  was  placed  in  a  category  apart — 
an  inferior  class  member  of  humanity. 

"In  Japan,  and  as  yet  in  Japan  alone,  do  we  find  the 
Asiatic  welcoming  European  culture,  in  which,  if  a  tree 
may  fairly  be  judged  by  its  fruit,  is  to  be  found  the  best 
prospect  for  the  human  personal  liberty,  in  due  combina- 
tion with  restraints  of  law  sufficient  to,  but  not  in  excess 
of,  the  requirements  of  the  general  welfare.  In  this  partic- 
ular distinctiveness  of  characteristic,  which  has  thus  dif- 
ferentiated the  receptivity  of  the  Japanese  from  that  of 
the  continental  Asiatic,  we  may  perhaps  see  the  influence 
of  the  insular  environment  that  has  permitted  and  favored 
the  evolution  of  a  strong  national  personality ;  and  in  the 
same  condition  we  may  not  err  in  finding  a  promise  of 
power  to  preserve  and  to  propagate,  by  example  and  by 
influence,  among  those  akin  to  her,  the  new  policy  which 
she  has  adopted,  and  by  which  she  has  profited,  affording 
to  them  the  example  which  she  herself  has  found  in  the 
development  of  Eastern  peoples."  ^ 

Now  that  is  exactly  what  the  Japanese  aimed  at  accom- 
plishing. They  were  desirous  of  contributing  to  the  intel- 
lectual and  moral  advance  of  the  Chinese  and  other  back- 
ward peoples  of  the  Far  East,  in  the  same  way  as  France 
is  laudably  desirous  of  aiding  the  Syrians,  or  Great  Britain 
the  Persians.  And  what  is  more,  Japan  undertook  to 
uphold  the  principle  of  the  open  door,  and  generally  to 
respect  the  legitimate  interests  of  European  peoples  in 
the  Far  East. 

But  the  white  races  had  economic  designs  of  their  own 
on  China,  and  one  of  the  preliminary  conditions  of  their 
'  C£.  The  Problem  oj  Asia  (Capt.  A.  T.  Malian),  pp.  150-151. 

329 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

execution  was  that  Japan's  aspirations  should  be  foiled. 
Witte  opened  the  campaign  by  inaugurating  the  process 
of  peaceful  penetration,  but  his  remarkable  efforts  were 
neutralized  and  defeated  by  his  own  sovereign.  The 
Japanese,  after  the  Manchurian  campaign,  which  they 
had  done  everything  possible  to  avoid,  contrived  wholly 
to  eliminate  Russian  aggression  from  the  Far  East.  The 
feat  was  arduous  and  the  masterly  way  in  which  it  was 
tackled  and  achieved  sheds  a  luster  on  Japanese  states- 
manship as  personified  b}^  Viscount  Motono.  The  Tsar- 
dom,  in  lieu  of  a  potential  enemy,  was  transformed  into  a 
stanch  and  powerful  friend  and  ally,  on  whom  Nippon 
could,  as  she  believed,  rely  against  future  aggressors. 
Russia  came  to  stand  toward  her  in  the  same  political 
relationship  as  toward  France.  Japanese  statesmen  took 
the  alliance  with  the  Tsardom  as  a  solid  and  durable 
postulate  of  their  foreign  policy 

All  at  once  the  Tsardom  fell  to  pieces  like  a  house  of 
cards,  and  the  fragments  that  emerged  from  the  ruins 
possessed  neither  the  will  nor  the  power  to  stand  by  their 
Far  Eastern  neighbors.  The  fruits  of  twelve  years' 
statesmanship  and  heavy  sacrifices  were  swept  away 
by  the  Russian  revolution,  and  Japan's  diplomatic  po- 
sition was  therefore  worse  beyond  compare  than  that 
of  the  French  Republic  in  July,  191 7,  because  the  latter 
was  forthwith  sustained  by  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States,  with  such  abundance  of  military  and  economic 
resources  as  made  up  in  the  long  run  for  that  of  Russia. 
Japan,  on  the  other  hand,  has  as  yet  no  substitute  for 
her  prostrate  ally.  She  is  still  alone  among  Powers  some 
of  whom  decline  to  recognize  her  equality,  while  others 
are  ready  to  thwart  her  policy  and  disable  her  for  the 
coming  race. 

The  Japanese  are  firm  believers  in  the  law  of  causality. 
Where  they  desire  to  reap,  there  they  first  sow.     They 

330 


JAPAN 

invariably  strive  to  deal  with  a  situation  while  there  is 
still  time  to  modify  it,  and  they  take  pains  to  render  the 
means  adequate  to  the  end.  Unlike  the  peoples  of 
western  Europe  and  the  United  States,  the  Japanese 
show  a  profound  respect  for  the  principles  of  authority 
and  inequality,  and  reserve  the  higher  functions  in  the 
community  for  men  of  the  greatest  ability  and  attain- 
ments. It  is  a  fact,  however,  that  individual  liberty 
has  made  perceptible  progress  in  the  population,  and  is 
still  growing,  owing  to  the  increase  of  economic  well- 
being  and  the  spread  of  general  and  technical  education. 
But  although  socialism  is  likewise  spreading  fast,  I  feel 
inclined  to  think  that  in  Japan  a  high  grade  of  instruction 
and  of  social  development  on  latter-day  lines  will  be 
found  compatible  with  that  extraordinary  cohesiveness 
to  which  the  race  owes  the  position  which  it  occupies 
among  the  communities  of  the  world.  The  soul  of  the 
individual  Japanese  may  be  said  to  float  in  an  atmosphere 
of  collectivity,  which,  while  leaving  his  intellect  intact, 
sways  his  sentiments  and  modifies  his  character  by  ren- 
dering him  impressible  to  motives  of  an  order  which  has 
the  weal  of  the  race  for  its  object. 

Japan  has  borrowed  what  seemed  to  her  leaders  to 
be  the  best  of  everything  in  foreign  countries.  They 
analyzed  the  military,  political,  and  industrial  successes 
of  their  friends  and  enemies,  satisfactorily  explained  and 
duly  fructified  them.  They  use  the  school  as  the  seed- 
plot  of  the  state,  and  inculcate  conceptions  there  which  the 
entire  community  endeavors  later  on  to  embody  in  acts 
and  institutions.  And  what  the  elementary  school  has 
begun,  the  intermediate,  the  technical,  and  the  high 
schools  develop  and  perfect,  aided  by  the  press,  which  is 
encouraged  by  the  state. 

Japan's  ideal  cannot  be  offhandedly  condemned  as 
immoral,  pernicious,  or  illegitimate.     Its  partizans  per- 

331 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

tinently  invoke  every  principle  which  their  AlHes  applied 
to  their  own  aims  and  strivings.  And  men  of  deeper 
insight  than  those  who  preside  over  the  fortunes  of  the 
Entente  to-day  recognize  that  Europeans  of  high  prin- 
ciples and  discerning  minds,  who  perceive  the  central 
issues,  would,  were  they  in  the  position  of  the  Japanese 
statesmen,  likewise  bend  their  energies  to  the  achievement 
of  the  same  aims. 

The  Japanese  argue  their  case  somewhat  as  follows: 
"We  are  determined  to  help  China  to  put  herself  in 
line  with  ourselves,  and  to  keep  her  from  falling  into 
anarchy.  And  no  one  can  honestly  deny  our  qualifica- 
tions. We  and  they  have  very  much  in  common,  and 
we  understand  them  as  no  Anglo-Saxon  or  other  foreign 
people  can.  On  the  one  hand  our  own  past  experience 
resembles  that  of  the  Middle  Kingdom,  and  on  the 
other  our  method  of  adapting  ourselves  to  the  new  inter- 
national conditions  challenged  and  received  the  ungrudg- 
ing admiration  of  a  world  disposed  to  be  critical.  The 
Peking  treaties  of  May,  1915,  between  China  and  Japan, 
and  the  pristine  drafts  of  them  which  were  modified 
before  signature,  enable  the  outsider  to  form  a  fairly 
accurate  opinion  of  Japan's  economic  and  political  pro- 
gram, which  amounts  to  the  application  of  a  Far  Eastern 
Monroe  Doctrine. 

"What  we  seek  to  obtain  in  the  Far  East  is  what  the 
Western  Powers  have  secured  throughout  the  remainder 
of  the  globe:  the  right  to  contribute  to  the  moral  and 
intellectual  progress  of  our  backward  neighbors,  and  to 
profit  by  our  exertions.  China  needs  the  help  which  we 
are  admittedly  able  to  bestow.  To  our  mission  no 
cogent  objection  has  ever  been  offered.  No  Cabinet  in 
Tokio  has  ever  looked  upon  the  Middle  Realm  as  a 
possible  colony  for  the  Japanese.  The  notion  is  pre- 
posterous, seeing  that  China  is  already  over-populated. 

332 


JAPAN 

What  Japan  sorely  needs  arc  sources  whence  to  draw 
coal  and  iron  for  industrial  enterprise.  She  also  needs 
cotton  and  leather." 

In  tnith,  the  ever-ready  command  of  these  raw  ma- 
terials at  their  sources,  which  must  be  neither  remote  nor 
subject  to  potential  enemies,  is  indispensable  to  the 
success  of  Japan's  development.  But  for  the  moment  the 
English-speaking  nations  have  a  veto  upon  them,  in  virtue 
of  possession,  and  the  embargo  put  by  the  United  States 
government  upon  the  export  of  steel  during  the  war 
caused  a  profound  emotion  in  Nippon.  For  the  ship- 
building works  there  had  increased  in  number  from  nine 
before  the  war  to  twelve  in  1917,  and  to  twenty-eight  at 
the  beginning  of  1918,  with  one  hundred  slips  capable 
of  producing  six  hundred  thousand  tons  of  net  register. 
The  effect  of  that  embargo  was  to  shut  down  between 
70  and  80  per  cent,  of  the  shipbuilding  works  of  the 
country,  and  to  menace  with  extinction  an  industry  which 
was  bringing  in  immense  profits. 

It  was  with  these  antecedents  and  aims  that  Japan 
appeared  before  the  Conference  in  Paris  and  asked,  not 
for  something  which  she  lacked  before,  but  merely  for 
the  confirmation  of  w^hat  she  already  possessed  by  treaty. 
It  must  be  admitted  that  she  had  damaged  her  cause  by 
the  manner  in  which  that  treaty  had  been  obtained.  To 
say  that  she  had  intimidated  the  Chinese,  instead  of 
coaxing  them  or  bargaining  with  them,  would  be  a 
truism.  The  fall  of  Tsingtao  gave  her  a  favorable  oppor- 
tunity, and  she  used  and  misused  it  unjustifiably.  The 
demands  in  themselves  were  open  to  discussion  and,  if 
one  weighs  all  the  circumstances,  would  not  deserve  a 
classification  different  from  some  of  those — the  protection 
of  minorities  or  the  transit  proviso,  for  example — imposed 
by  the  greater  on  the  lesser  nations  at  the  Conference. 
But  the  mode  in  which  they  were  pressed  irritated  the 

333 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

susceptible  Chinese  and  belied  the  professions  made 
by  the  Mikado's  Ministers.  The  secrecy,  too,  with  which 
the  Tokio  Cabinet  endeavored  to  surround  them  war- 
ranted the  worst  construction.  Yuan  Shi  Kai  ^  regarded 
the  procedure  as  a  deadly  insult  to  himself  and  his  country. 
And  the  circumstance  that  the  Japanese  government 
failed  either  to  foresee  or  to  avoid  this  amazing  psycho- 
logical blunder  lent  color  to  the  objections  of  those  who 
questioned  Japan's  qualifications  for  the  mission  she  had 
set  herself.  The  wound  inflicted  on  China  by  that  ex- 
hibition of  insolence  will  not  soon  heal.  How  it  reacted 
may  be  inferred  from  the  strenuous  and  well-calculated 
opposition  of  the  Chinese  delegation  at  the  Conference 

Nor  was  that  all.  In  the  summer  of  191 6  a  free  fight 
occurred  between  Chinese  and  Japanese  soldiers  in  Cheng- 
cha-tun,  the  rights  and  wrongs  of  which  were,  as  is 
usual  in  such  cases,  obscure.  But  the  Okuma  Cabinet, 
assuming  that  the  Chinese  were  to  blame,  pounced  upon 
the  incident  and  made  it  the  base  of  fresh  demands  to 
China, ^  two  of  which  were  manifestly  excessive.  That 
China  would  be  better  off  than  she  is  or  is  otherwise 
likely  to  become  under  Japanese  guidance  is  in  the  highest 
degree  probable.  But  in  order  that  that  guidance  should 
be  effective  it  must  be  accepted,  and  this  can  only  be  the 
consequence  of  such  a  policy  of  cordiality,  patience,  and 
magnanimity  as  was  outlined  by  my  friend,  the  late 
Viscount  Motono.^ 

At  the  Conference  the  policy  of  the  Japanese  delegates 
was  clear-cut  and  coherent.  It  may  be  summarized  as 
follows:    the  Japanese  delegation   decided   to   give   its 


» The  late  President  of  the  Chinese  Republic. 

2  These  demands  were  (i)  an  apology  from  the  Chinese  authorities;  (2) 
an  indemnity  for  the  killed  and  wounded;  (3)  the  policing  of  certain  dis- 
tricts of  Manchuria  by  the  Japanese;  and  (4)  the  employment  of  Japanese 
officers  to  train  Chinese  troops  in  Manchuria. 

s  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs.     He  repudiated  his  predecessor's  policy. 

334 


JAPAN 

entire  support  to  the  Allies  in  all  matters  concerning  the 
future  relations  of  Germany  and  Russia,  western  Europe, 
the  Balkans,  the  African  colonics,  as  well  as  financial 
indemnities  and  reparations.  The  fate  of  the  Samoan 
Archipelago  must  be  determined  in  accord  with  Britain 
and  the  United  States.  New  Guinea  should  be  allotted  to 
Australia.  As  the  Marshall,  Caroline,  and  Ladrone 
Islands,  although  of  no  intrinsic  value,  would  constitute  a 
danger  in  Germany's  hands,  they  should  be  taken  over  by 
Japan.  Tsingtao  and  the  port  of  Kiaochow  should  belong 
to  Japan,  as  well  as  the  Tainan  railway.  Japan  would 
co-operate  with  the  Allies  in  maintaining  order  in  Siberia, 
but  no  Power  should  arrogate  to  itself  a  preponderant 
voice  in  the  matter  of  obtaining  concessions  or  other 
interests  there.  Lastly,  the  principle  of  the  open  door  was 
to  be  upheld  in  China,  Japan  being  admittedly  the  Power 
which  is  the  most  interested  in  the  establishment  and 
maintenance  of  peace  in  the  Far  East. 

At  the  Conference,  when  the  Kiaochow  dispute  came 
up  for  discussion,  the  Japanese  attitude,  according  to  their 
Anglo-Saxon  and  French  colleagues,  was  calm  and  dig- 
nified, their  language  courteous,  their  arguments  were  put 
with  studied  moderation,  and  their  resolve  to  have  their 
treaty  rights  recognized  was  inflexible.  Their  case  was 
simple  enough,  and  under  the  old  ordering  unanswerable. 
The  only  question  was  whether  it  would  be  invalidated  by 
the  new  dispensation.  But  as  the  United  States  had 
obtained  recognition  for  its  Monroe  Doctrine,  Britain 
for  the  supremacy  of  the  sea,  and  France  for  the  occupa- 
tion of  the  Saar  Valley  and  the  suspension  of  the  right"- 
of  self-determination  in  the  case  of  Austria,  it  was  obviotls 
that  Japan  had  abundant  and  cogent  arguments  fpr  her 
demands,  which  were  that  the  Chinese  territory  once 
held  by  Germany,  and  since  wrested  fr©m  that  Power 
by  Japan,  be  formally  retroceded  to  Japan;  whose  claim 

335 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

to  it  rested  upon  the  right  of  conquest  and  also  upon  the 
faith  of  treaties  which  she  had  concluded  with  China. 
At  the  same  time  she  expressly  and  spontaneously  dis- 
claimed the  intention  of  keeping  that  territory  for  herself. 
Baron  Makino  said  at  the  Peace  Table: 

"The  acquisition  of  territory  belonging  to  one  nation 
which  it  is  the  intention  of  the  country  acquiring  it  to 
exploit  to  its  sole  advantage  is  not  conducive  to  amity 
or  good-will."  Japan,  although  by  the  fortune  of  war 
Germany's  heir  to  Kiaochow,  did  not  purpose  retaining  it 
for  the  remaining  term  of  the  lease;  she  had,  in  fact, 
already  promised  to  restore  it  to  China.  She  maintained, 
however,  that  the  conditions  of  retrocession  should  form 
the  subject  of  a  general  settlement  between  Tokio  and 
Peking. 

The  Chinese  delegation,  which  worked  vigorously  and 
indefatigably  and  won  over  a  considerable  num.ber  of 
backers,  argued  that  Kiaochow  had  ceased  to  belong  to 
Germany  on  the  day  when  China  declared  war  on  that 
state,  inasmuch  as  all  their  treaties,  including  the  lease 
of  Kiaochow,  were  abrogated  by  that  declaration,  and 
the  ownership  of  every  rood  of  Chinese  territory  held 
by  Germany  reverted  in  law  to  China,  and  should  there- 
fore be  handed  over  to  her,  and  not  to  Japan.  To  this 
plea  Baron  Makino  returned  the  answer  that  with  the 
surrender  of  Tsingtao  to  Japan  in  1914^  the  whole  im- 
perial German  protectorates  of  Shantung  had  passed  to 
that  Power,  China  being  still  a  neutral.  Consequently  tke 
entry  of  China  into  the  war  in  191 7  could  not  affect  the 
status  of  the  province  which  already  belonged  to  Nippon 
by  right  of  conquest.  As  a  matter  of  alleged  fact,  this 
capture  of  the  protectorates  by  the  Japanese  had  been 
specially  desired  by  the  British  government,  in  order  to 
prevent  Germany  from  ceding  it  to  China.     If  that  move 

*  November  8th. 

336 


JAPAN 

meant  anything,  therefore,  it  meant  that  neither  China 
nor  Germany  had  or  could  have  any  hold  on  the  territory 
once  it  was  captured  by  Japan.  Further,  this  conquest 
was  effected  at  the  cost  of  vast  sums  of  money  and  two 
thousand  Japanese  lives. 

Nor  was  that  all.  In  the  year  191 5  ^  China  signed  an 
agreement  with  Japan,  undertaking  "to  recognize  all  mat- 
ters that  may  be  agreed  upon  between  the  Japanese  gov- 
ernment and  the  German  government  respecting  the  dis- 
position of  all  th^ights,  interests,  and  concessions  which, 
in  virtue  of  treaties  or  otherwise,  Germany  possesses 
vis-d-vis  China,  in  relation  to  the  province  of  Shantung." 
This  treaty,  the  Chinese  dej,egates  answered,  was  extorted 
by  force.  Japan,  having  vainly  sought  to  obtain  it  by 
negotiations  that  lasted  nearly  four  months,  finally  pre- 
sented an  ultimatum,"  giving  China  forty-eight  hours  in 
which  to  accept  it.  She  had  no  alternative.  But  at  least 
she  made  it  known  to  the  world  that  she  was  being 
coerced.  It  was  on  the  day  on  which  that  document 
was  signed  that  the  Japanese  representative  in  Peking 
sent  a  spontaneous  declaration  to  the  Chinese  Minister  of 
Foreign  Affairs,  promising  to  return  the  leased  territory 
to  China  on  condition  that  all  Kiaochow  be  opened  as  a 
commercial  port,  that  a  Japanese  settlement  be  estab- 
lished, and  also  an  international  settlement,  if  the  Powers 
desired  it,  and  that  an  arrangement  be  made  beforehand 
between  the  Chinese  and  Japanese  governments  with 
regard  to  "the  disposal  of  German  public  establishments 
and  populations,  and  with  regard  to  other  conditions  and 
procedures." 

The  Japanese  further  invoked  another  and  later  agree- 
ment, which  was,  they  alleged,  signed  by  the  Chinese 
without  demur. ^     This  accord,  coming  after  the  entry  of 

1  May  25,  1915.  2  On  May  6,  1915. 

2  On  September  24,  191 8. 

337 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

China  into  the  war,  was  tantamount  to  the  renunciation 
of  any  rights  which  China  might  have  beheved  she  pos- 
sessed as  a  corohary  of  her  belligerency.  It  also  disposed, 
the  Japanese  argued,  of  her  contention  that  the  territory 
in  question  is  indispensable  and  vital  to  her — a  contention 
which  Japan  met  with  the  promise  to  deliver  it  up — and 
which  was  invalidated  by  China's  refusal  to  fight  for  it 
in  the  year  1914.  This  latter  argument  was  controverted 
by  the  Chinese  assertion  that  they  were  ready  and  willing 
to  declare  war  against  Germany  at  the  outset,  but  that 
their  co-operation  was  refused  by  the  Entente,  and  sub- 
sequently by  Japan.  This  allegation  is  credible,  if  we 
remember  the  eagerness  exhibited  by  the  British  govern- 
m.ent  that  Japan  should  lose  no  time  in  co-operating  with 
her  allies,  the  representations  made  by  the  British  Am- 
bassador to  Baron  Kato  on  the  subject,^  and  the  alleged 
motive  to  prevent  the  retrocession  of  Shantung  to  China 
by  the  German  government. 

The  arguments  of  China  and  Japan  were  summarily 
put  in  the  following  questions  by  a  delegate  of  each  coun- 
try: "Yes  or  no,  does  Kiaochow,  whose  population  is 
exclusively  Chinese,  form  an  integral  part  of  the  Chinese 
state?  Yes  or  no,  was  Kiaochow  brutally  occupied  by 
the  Kaiser  in  the  teeth  of  right  and  justice  and  to  the 
detriment  of  the  peace  of  the  Far  East,  and  it  may  be  of 
the  world?  Yes  or  no,  did  Japan  enter  the  war  against 
the  aggressive  imperialism  of  the  German  Empire,  and 
for  the  purpose  of  arranging  a  lasting  peace  in  the  Far 
East  ?  Yes  or  no,  was  Kiaochow  captured  by  the  English 
and  Japanese  troops  in  19 14  with  the  sole  object  of  de- 
stroying a  dangerous  naval  base?  Yes  or  no,  was  China's 
co-operation  against  Germany,  which  was  advocated  and 
offered  by  President  Yuan  Shi  Kai  in  August,  19 14,  re- 
fused at  the  instigation  of  Japan?"  ^ 

'  On  August  7,  1914.  ^  Cf.  Lc  Matin,  April  25,  1919. 

338 


JAPAN 

The  Japanese  catechism  ran  thus:  "Yes  or  no,  was 
Kiaochow  a  German  possession  in  the  year  191 4?  Yes 
or  no,  was  the  world,  inckiding  the  United  vStates,  a  con- 
senting party  to  the  occupation  of  that  province  by  the 
Germans?  Why  did  China,  who  to-day  insists  that  that 
port  is  indispensable  to  her,  cede  it  to  Germany?  Why 
in  1 9 14  did  she  make  no  effort  to  recover  it,  but  leave  this 
task  to  the  Japanese  army?  Further,  who  can  maintain 
that  juridically  the  last  war  abolished  ipso  facto  all  the 
cessions  of  territory  previously  effected?  Turkey  for- 
merly ceded  Cyprus  to  Great  Britain.  Will  it  be  argued 
that  this  cession  is  abrogated  and  that  Cyprus  must  re- 
turn to  Turkey  directly  and  unconditionally?  The  Con- 
ference announced  repeatedly  that  it  took  its  stand  on 
justice  and  the  welfare  of  the  peoples.  It  is  in  the  name 
of  the  welfare  of  the  peoples,  as  well  as  in  the  name  of 
justice,  that  we  assert  our  right  to  take  over  Kiaochow. 
The  harvest  to  him  whose  hands  soweth  the  seed."  ^ 

If  we  add  to  all  these  conflicting  data  the  circumstance 
that  Great  Britain,  France,  and  Russia  had  undertaken  ^ 
to  support  Japan's  demands  at  the  Conference,  and  that 
Italy  had  promised  to  raise  no  objection,  we  shall  have  a 
tolerable  notion  of  the  various  factors  of  the  Chino- 
Japanese  dispute,  and  of  its  bearings  on  the  Peace  Treaty 
and  on  the  principles  of  the  Covenant.  It  was  one  of  the 
many  illustrations  of  the  incompatibility  of  the  Treaty 
and  the  C^'ovenant,  the  respective  scopes  of  which  were 

1  Le  Matin,  April  23,  19 19. 

-  "  His  Majesty's  Government  accede  with  pleasure  to  the  requests  of  the 
Japanese  Government  for  assiu-ances  that  they  will  support  Japan's  claims 
in  regard  to  the  disposal  of  Gennany's  rights  in  Shantung,  and  possessions 
in  islands  north  of  the  Equator,  on  the  occasion  of  a  Peace  Conference,  it 
being  understood  that  the  Japanese  Government  will,  in  the  event  of  a 
peace  settlement,  treat  in  the  same  spirit  Great  Britain's  claims  to  German 
islands  south  of  the  Equator."  (Signed)  Conyngham  Greene,  British 
Ambassador,  Tokio,  February-  16,  191 7.  France  gave  a  similar  assurance 
in  writing  on  March  i,  191 7,  and  the  Russian  government  had  made  a  like 
declaration  on  February  20,  191 7. 

23  339 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

radically  and  irreconcilably  different.  The  Supreme 
Council  had  to  adjudicate  upon  the  matter  from  the 
point  of  view  either  of  the  Treaty  or  of  the  Covenant; 
as  part  of  a  vulgar  bargain  of  the  old,  unregenerate  days, 
or  as  an  example  of  the  self-renunciation  of  the  new  ethical 
system.  The  majority  of  the  Council  was  pledged  to  the 
former  way  of  contemplating  it,  and,  having  already  pro- 
mulgated a  number  of  decrees  running  counter  to  the 
Covenant  doctrine  in  favor  of  their  own  peoples,  could 
not  logically  nor  politically  make  an  exception  to  the 
detriment  of  Japan. 

What  actually  happened  at  the  Peace  Table  is  still  a 
secret,  and  President  Wilson,  who  knows  its  nature,  holds 
that  it  is  in  the  best  interests  of  humanity  that  it  should 
so  remain !  The  little  that  has  as  yet  been  disclosed  comes 
mainly  from  State-Secretary  Lansing's  answers  to  the 
questions  put  by  the  Senate  Foreign  Relations  Commit- 
tee. America's  second  delegate,  in  answer  to  the  ques- 
tions with  which  he  was  there  plied,  affirmed  that  ' '  Presi- 
dent Wilson  alone  approved  the  Shantung  decision,  that 
the  other  members  of  the  American  delegation  made  no 
protest  against  it,  and  that  President  Wilson  alone  knows 
whether  Japan  has  guaranteed  to  return  Shantung  to 
China."  ^  Another  eminent  American,  who  claims  to  have 
been  present  when  President  Wilson's  act  was  officially 
explained  to  the  Chinese  delegates,  states  that  the  Presi- 
dent, disclosing  to  them  his  motives,  pleaded  that  political 
exigencies,  the  menace  that  Japan  would  abandon  the 
Conference,  and  the  rumor  that  England  herself  might 
withdraw,  had  constrained  him  to  accept  the  Shantung 


1  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  entire  world  knew  ancl  knows  that  she  had  guar- 
anteed the  retrocession.  Baron  Makino  declared  it  at  the  Conference. 
Cf.  The  (London)  Times,  February  13,  1919;  also  on  May  5,  19x9;  and 
Viscount  Uchida  confirmed  it  on  May  17,  1919.  It  had  also  been  stated 
in  the  Japanese  ultimatum  to  Germany,  August  15,  1914,  and  repeated  by 
Viscount  Uchida  at  the  beginning  of  August,  191 9. 

340 


JAPAN 

settlement  in  order  to  save  the  League.^  Rumors  appear 
to  have  played  an  undue  part  in  the  Conference,  influenc- 
ing the  judgment  or  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Council. 
The  reader  will  remember  that  it  was  a  rumor  to  the  effect 
that  the  Italian  government  had  already  published  a 
decree  annexing  Fiume  that  is  alleged  to  have  precipitated 
the  quarrel  between  Mr.  Wilson  and  the  first  Italian  dele- 
gation. It  is  worth  noting  that  the  alleged  menace  that 
Japan  would  quit  the  Conference  if  her  demands  were 
rejected  was  not  regarded  by  Secretary  Lansing  as  serious. 
"Could  Japan's  signature  to  the  League  have  been  ob- 
tained without  the  Shantung  decision?"  he  was  asked. 
"I  think  so,"  he  answered. 

The  decision  caused  tremendous  excitement  among  the 
Chinese  and  their  numerous  friends.  At  first  they  pro- 
fessed skepticism  and  maintained  that  there  must  be  some 
misunderstanding,  and  finally  they  protested  and  refused 
to  sign  the  Treaty.  One  of  the  American  journals  pub- 
lished in  Paris  wrote:  "Shantung  was  at  least  a  moral 
explosion.  It  blew  down  the  front  of  the  temple,  and  now 
everybody  can  see  that  behind  the  front  there  was  a  very 
busy  market.  The  morals  were  the  morals  of  a  horse 
trade.  If  the  muezzin  were  loud  and  constant  in  his  calls 
to  prayer,  it  probably  was  to  drown  the  sound  of  the 
dickering  in  the  market.  There  is  no  longer  any  obliga- 
tion upon  this  nation  to  accept  the  Covenant  as  a  moral 
document.     It  is  not."  - 

All  that  may  be  perfectly  true,  but  it  sounds  odd  that 
the  discovery  should  not  have  been  made  until  Japan's 
claim  was  admitted  formally  to  take  over  Shantung,  after 
she  had  solemnly  promised  to  restore  it  to  China.  The 
Covenant  was  certainly  transgressed  long  before  this, 


1  Mr.  Thomas  Millard,  some  of  whose  letters  were  published  by  The  New 
York  Times.     Cf.  Le  Temps,  July  29,  1919. 

2  The  Chicago  Tribune  (Paris  edition),  August  20,  1919. 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

and  much  more  flagrantly  than  by  President  Wilson's 
indorsement  of  Japan's  demand  for  the  formal  retroces- 
sion of  Shantung.  But  by  those  infractions  nobody 
seemed  scandalized.  Quod  licet  Jovi  non  licet  bovi.  Debts 
of  gratitude  had  to  be  paid  at  the  expense  of  the  Covenant, 
and  people  closed  their  eyes  or  their  lips.  It  was  not 
until  the  Japanese  asked  for  something  which  all  her 
European  allies  considered  to  be  her  right  that  an  outcry 
was  raised  and  moral  principles  were  invoked. 

The  Japanese  press  was  nowise  jubilant  over  the  finding 
of  the  Supreme  Council.  The  journals  of  all  parties 
argued  that  their  country  was  receiving  no  more  than  had 
already  been  guaranteed  to  it  by  China,  and  ratified  by 
the  Allies  before  the  Peace  Conference  met,  and  to  have 
obtained  what  was  already  hers  by  rights  of  conquest  and 
of  treaties  was  anything  but  a  triumph.  What  Japan 
desired  was  to  have  herself  recognized  practically,  not 
merely  in  theory,  as  the  nation  which  is  the  most  nearly 
interested  in  China,  and  therefore  deserving  of  a  special 
status  there.  In  other  words,  she  aimed  at  the  proclama- 
tion of  something  in  the  nature  of  a  Far  Eastern  doctrine 
analogous  to  that  of  Monroe.  As  priority  of  interest  had 
been  conceded  to  her  by  the  Ishii-Lansing  Agreement  with 
the  United  States,  it  was  in  this  sense  that  her  press 
was  fain  to  construe  the  clause  respecting  non-inter- 
ference with  "regional  understandings." 

That  policy  is  open.  The  principles  underlying  it,  al- 
ways tenable,  were  never  more  so  than  since  the  Peace 
Conference  set  the  Great  Powers  to  direct  the  lesser 
states.  Moreover,  Japan,  it  is  argued,  knows  by  expe- 
rience that  China  has  always  been  a  temptation  to  the 
Western  peoples.  They  sent  expeditions  to  fight  her  and 
divided  her  territory  into  zones  of  influence,  although 
China  was  never  guilty  of  an  aggressive  attitude  toward 
them,  as  she  was  toward  Japan.     They  were  actuated  by 

343 


JAPAN 

land  greed  and  all  that  that  implies,  and  if  China  were 
abandoned  to  her  own  resources  to-morrow  she  would 
surely  fall  a  prey  to  her  Western  protectors.  In  this  con- 
nection they  point  to  an  incident  which  took  place  during 
the  Conference,  when  Signor  Tittoni  demanded  that 
Italy  should  receive  the  Austrian  concession  in  Tientsin, 
which  adjoins  the  Italian  concession.  But  Viscount 
Chinda  protested  and  the  demand  was  ruled  out.  To 
sum  up,  the  broad  maxim  underlying  Japan's  policy  as 
defined  by  her  own  representatives  is  that  in  the  resettle- 
ment of  the  world  the  principle  adopted,  whether  the 
old  or  the  new,  shall  be  applied  fairly  and  impartially 
at  least  to  all  the  Great  Powers. 

Every  world  conflict  has  marked  the  close  of  one  epoch 
and  the  opening  of  another.  Into  the  melting-pot  on 
the  fire  kindled  by  the  war  many  momentous  problems 
have  been  flung,  any  one  of  which  would  have  sufficed 
to  bring  about  a  new  political,  economic,  and  social  con- 
stellation. Japan's  advance  along  the  road  of  progress 
is  one  of  these  far-ranging  innovations.  She  became  a 
Great  Power  in  the  wars  against  China  and  Russia,  and  is 
qualifying  for  the  part  of  a  World  Power  to-day.  And 
her  statesmen  affirm  that  in  order  to  achieve  her  purpose 
she  will  recoil  from  no  sacrifice  except  those  of  honor  and 
of  truth. 


X 

ATTITUDE   TOWARD    RUSSIA 

IN  their  dealings  with  Russia  the  principal  plenipotenti- 
aries consistently  displayed  the  qualities  and  employed 
the  standards,  maxims,  and  methods  which  had  stood 
them  in  good  stead  as  parliamentary  politicians.  The 
betterment  of  the  world  was  an  idea  which  took  a  separate 
position  in  their  minds,  quite  apart  from  the  other  political 
ideas  with  which  they  usually  operated.  Overflowing 
with  verbal  altruism,  they  first  made  sure  of  the  political 
and  economic  interests  of  their  own  countries,  safeguard- 
ing or  extending  these  sources  of  power,  after  which  they 
proceeded  to  try  their  novel  experiment  on  communities 
which  they  could  coerce  into  obedience.  Hence  the 
aversion  and  opposition  which  they  encountered  among 
all  the  nations  which  had  to  submit  to  the  yoke,  and  more 
especially  among  the  Russians. 

Russia's  opposition,  widespread  and  deep-rooted,  is 
natural,  and  history  will  probably  add  that  it  was  justified. 
It  starts  from  the  assumption,  which  there  is  no  gainsaying, 
that  the  Conference  was  convoked  to  make  peace  between 
the  belligerents  and  that  whatever  territorial  changes 
it  might  introduce  must  be  restricted  to  the  countries 
of  the  defeated  peoples.  From  all  "disannexations"  not 
only  the  Allies'  territories,  but  those  of  neutrals,  were  to 
be  exempted.  Repudiate  this  principle  and  the  demands 
of  Ireland,  Egypt,  India  to  the  benefits  of  self-determina- 
tion became  unanswerable.     Belgium's  claim  to  Dutch 

344 


AITITUDE  TOWARD  RUSSIA 

Limburg  and  other  territorial  oddments  must  likewise 
be  allowed.  Indeed,  the  plea  actually  put  forward 
against  these  was  that  the  Conference  was  incompetent 
to  touch  any  territory  actually  possessed  by  either  neu- 
tral or  Allied  states.  Ireland,  Egypt,  and  Dutch  Limburg 
were  all  domestic  matters  with  which  the  Conference 
had  no  concern. 

Despite  this  fundamental  principle  Russia,  the  whilom 
Ally,  without  whose  superhuman  efforts  and  heroic  sacri- 
fices her  partners  would  have  been  pulverized,  was  tacitly 
relegated  to  the  category  of  hostile  and  defeated  peoples, 
and  many  of  her  provinces  lopped  off  arbitrarily  and 
without  appeal.  None  of  her  representatives  was  con- 
voked or  consulted  on  the  subject,  although  all  of  them, 
Bolshevist  and  anti-Bolshevist,  were  at  one  in  their  re- 
sistance to  foreign  dictation. 

The  Conference  repeatedly  disclaimed  any  intention 
of  meddling  in  the  internal  affairs  of  any  other  state, 
and  the  Irish,  the  Egyptian,  and  several  other  analogous 
problems  were  for  the  purposes  of  the  Conference  included 
in  this  category.  On  what  intelligible  grounds,  then, 
were  the  Finnish,  the  Lettish,  the  Esthonian,  the  Georgian, 
the  Ukrainian  problems  excluded  from  it?  One  cannot 
conceive  a  more  flagrant  violation  of  the  sovereignty  of  a 
state  than  the  severance  and  disposal  of  its  territorial 
possessions  against  its  will.  It  is  a  frankly  hostile  act, 
and  as  such  was  rightly  limited  by  the  Conference  to 
enemy  countries.  Why,  then,  was  it  extended  to  the 
ex- Ally  ?  Is  it  not  clear  that  if  reconstituted  Russia  should 
regard  the  Allied  states  as  enemies  and  choose  the  poten- 
tial enemies  of  these  as  its  friends,  it  will  be  legitimately 
applying  the  principles  laid  down  by  the  Allies  themselves  ? 
No  expert  in  international  law  and  no  person  of  average 
common  sense  will  seriously  maintain  that  any  of  the 
decisions  reached  in  Paris  are  binding  on  the  Russia  of  the 

345 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

future.  No  problem  which  concerns  two  equal  parties 
can  be  rightfully  decided  by  only  one  of  them.  The 
Conference  which  declared  itself  incompetent  to  impose 
on  Holland  the  cession  to  Belgium  even  of  a  small  strip 
of  territory  on  one  of  the  banks  of  the  Belgian  river 
Scheldt  cannot  be  deemed  authorized  to  sign  away  vast 
provinces  that  belonged  to  Russia.  Here  the  plea  of 
the  self-determination  of  peoples  possesses  just  as  much 
or  as  little  cogency  as  in  the  case  of  Ireland  and  Egypt. 

President  Wilson  and  Mr.  Lloyd  George  had  inaugu- 
rated their  East  European  policy  by  publicly  proclaiming 
that  Russia  was  the  key  to  the  world  situation,  and  that 
the  peace  would  be  no  peace  so  long  as  her  hundred  and 
fifty  million  inhabitants  were  left  floundering  in  chaotic 
confusion,  under  the  upas  shade  of  Bolshevism.  They 
had  also  held  out  hopes  to  their  great  ex-ally  of  efficient 
help  and  practical  counsel.  And  there  ended  what  may 
be  termed  the  constructive  side  of  their  conceptions. 

It  was  followed  by  no  coherent  action.  Discourses, 
promises,  maneuvers,  and  counter-maneuvers  were  con- 
tinuous and  bewildering,  but  of  systematic  policy  there 
was  none.  Statesmanship  in  the  higher  sense  of  the  word 
was  absent  from  every  decision  the  delegates  took  and 
from  every  suggestion  they  proffered.  Nor  was  it  only 
by  omission  that  they  sinned.  Their  invincible  turn 
for  circuitous  methods,  to  which  severer  critics  give  a 
less  sonorous  name,  was  manifested  ad  nauseam.  They 
worked  out  cunning  little  schemes  which  it  was  hard  to 
distinguish  from  intrigues,  and  which,  if  they  had  not 
been  foiled  in  time,  would  have  made  matters  even  worse 
than  they  are.  From  the  outset  the  British  government 
was  for  summoning  Bolshevist  delegates  to  the  Conference. 
A  note  to  this  effect  was  sent  by  the  London  Foreign 
Office  to  the  Allied  governments  about  a  fortnight  before 
the  delegates  began  their  work  of  making  peace.     But 

346 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD  RUSSIA 

the  suggestion  was  withdrawn  at  the  instance  of  the 
French,  who  doubted  whether  the  services  of  systematic 
lawbreakers  would  materially  conduce  to  the  establish- 
ment of  a  new  society  of  law-abiding  states.  Soon  after- 
ward another  scheme  cropped  up,  this  time  for  the  appoint- 
ment of  an  Inter- Allied  committee  to  watch  over  Russia's 
destinies  and  serve  as  a  sort  of  board  of  Providence. 
The  representatives  of  the  anti-Bolshevist  governments 
resented  this  notion  bitterly.  They  remarked  that  they 
could  not  be  fairly  asked  to  respect  decisions  imposed  on 
them  exactly  as  though  they  were  vanquished  enemies 
like  the  Germans.  The  British  and  American  delegates 
were  swayed  in  their  views  mainly  by  the  assumptions 
that  all  central  Russia  was  in  the  power  of  Lenin;  that 
his  army  was  well  disciplined  and  powerful;  that  he 
might  contrive  to  hold  the  reins  of  government  and  main- 
tain anarchism  indefinitely,  and  that  the  so-called  con- 
structive elements  were  inclined  toward  reaction. 

In  other  words,  the  delegates  accepted  two  sets  of  prem- 
ises, from  which  they  drew  two  wholly  different  sets  of 
conclusions.  Now  they  felt  impelled  to  act  on  the  one, 
now  on  the  other,  but  they  could  never  make  up  their 
minds  to  carry  out  either.  They  agreed  that  Bolshevism 
is  a  potent  solvent  of  society,  fraught  with  peril  to  all 
organized  communities,  yet  they  could  not  resolve  to  use 
joint  action  to  extirpate  it.^  They  recognized  that  so 
long  as  it  lasted  there  was  no  hope  of  establishing  a  com- 
munity of  nations,  but  they  discarded  military  interven- 
tion on  grounds  of  their  own  internal  policy,  and  because 
it  ran  counter  to  the  principle  of  self-detennination.  Over 
against  that  principle,  however,  one  had  to  set  the  cir- 
cumstance that  they  were  already  intei  meddling  in  Rus- 

'  "From  whatever  angle  this  Russian  business  is  viewed,  the  poHcy  of  the 
Allies,  if  it  can  be  dignified  with  that  name,  seems  to  be  a  compound  of 
weakness,  ineptitude,  and  shilly-shally." — Cf.  The  Westminster  Gazette, 
July  5,  1919. 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

sian  affairs  in  Archangel,  Murmansk,  Odessa,  and  else- 
where, and  that  they  ended  by  creating  a  new  state  and 
government  in  northwestern  Russia,  against  which  Kol- 
chak  and  Denikin  vehemently  protested. 

In  mitigation  of  judgment  it  is  only  fair  to  take  into 
account  the  tremendous  difficulties  that  faced  them;  their 
unfamiliarity  with  the  Russian  problem;  the  want  of  a 
touchstone  by  which  to  test  the  overwhelming  mass  of 
conflicting  information  which  poured  in  upon  them;  their 
constitutional  lack  of  moral  courage,  and  the  circum- 
stance that  they  were  striving  to  reconcile  contradictories. 
Without  chart  or  compass  they  drifted  into  strange  and 
sterile  courses,  beginning  with  the  Prinkipo  incident  and 
ending  with  the  written  examination  to  which  they 
naively  subjected  Kolchak  in  order  to  legalize  inter- 
national relations,  which  could  not  truly  be  described  as 
either  war  or  peace.  Neither  the  causes  of  Bolshevism 
in  its  morbid  manifestations  nor  the  unformulated  ideas 
underlying  whatever  positive  aspect  it  may  be  supposed 
to  possess,  nor  the  conditions  governing  its  slow  but  per- 
ceptible evolution,  were  so  much  as  glanced  at,  much  less 
studied,  by  the  statesmen  who  blithely  set  about  dealing 
with  it  now  by  military  force,  now  by  economic  pressure, 
and  fitfully  by  tentative  forbearance  and  hints  to  its 
leaders  of  forthcoming  recognition. 

One  cannot  thus  play  fast  and  loose  with  the  destinies 
of  a  community  composed  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  million 
people  whose  members  are  but  slackly  linked  together  by 
a  few  tenuous  social  bonds,  without  forfeiting  the  right  to 
offer  them  real  guidance.  And  a  blind  man  is  a  poor 
guide  to  those  who  can  see.  Alone  the  Americans  were 
equipped  with  carefully  tabulated  statistics  and  huge 
masses  of  facts  which  they  poured  out  as  lavishly  as  coal- 
heavers  hurl  the  contents  of  their  sacks  into  the  cellar. 
But  they  put  them  to  no  practical  use.     Losing  themselves 

348 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD  RUSSIA 

in  a  labyrinth  of  details,  they  failed  to  get  a  comprehen- 
sive view  of  the  whole.  The  other  delegations  lacked 
both  data  and  general  ideas.  And  all  the  Allies  were 
destitute  of  a  powerful  army  in  the  East,  and  therefore 
of  the  means  of  asserting  the  authority  which  they 
assumed. 

They  one  and  all  dealt  in  vague  theories  and  deceptive 
analogies,  paying  little  heed  to  the  ever-shifting  necessi- 
ties of  time,  place,  and  peoples,  and  indeed  to  the  only 
conditions  under  which  any  new  maxims  could  be  fruitfully 
applied.  And  even  such  rules  as  they  laid  down  were 
restricted  and  modified  in  accordance  with  their  own 
countries'  interests  or  their  unavowed  aims,  without  spe- 
cific warrant  or  explanation.  No  account  was  taken  of 
the  historical  needs  or  aspirations  of  the  people  for  whom 
they  were  legislating,  as  though  all  nations  were  of  the 
same  age,  capable  of  the  same  degree  of  culture,  and  im- 
pressible to  identical  motives.  It  never  seemed  to  have 
crossed  their  minds  that  races  and  peoples,  like  individ- 
uals, have  a  soul,  or  that  what  is  meat  to  one  may  be 
poison  to  another. 

One  of  the  most  Ententophil  and  moderate  press  organs 
in  France  put  the  matter  forcibly  and  plainly  as  follows: 
"The  governments  of  Washington  and  of  London  are 
aware  that  we  are  immutably  attached  to  the  alliance 
with  them.  But  we  owe  them  the  truth.  Far  too  often 
they  make  a  bad  choice  of  the  agents  whose  business  it 
is  to  keep  them  informed,  and  they  affect  too  much  dis- 
dain for  friendly  suggestions  which  emanate  from  any 
other  source.  American  agents,  in  particular,  civil  as 
well  as  military,  explore  Europe  much  as  their  forebears 
'prospected'  the  Far  West,  and  they  look  upon  the  most 
ancient  nations  of  Europe  as  Iroquois,  Comanches,  or 
Aztecs.  They  are  astounded  at  not  finding  everything 
on  the  old  Continent  as  in  New  York  or  Chicago,  and  they 

349 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

set  to  work  to  reform  Europe  according  to  the  rules  in 
force  in  Oklahoma  or  Colorado.  Now  we  venture  re- 
spectfully to  point  out  to  them  that  methods  differ  with 
countries.  In  the  United  States  the  Colonists  were  wont 
to  set  fire  to  the  forests  in  order  to  clear  and  fertilize  the 
land.  Certain  American  agents  recommend  the  employ- 
ment in  Europe  of  an  analogous  procedure  in  political 
matters.  They  rejoice  to  behold  the  Russian  and  Hun- 
garian forests  burst  into  flame.  In  Lenin,  Trotzky,  Bela 
Kuhn,  they  appreciate  useful  pioneers  of  the  new  civiliza- 
tion. We  crave  their  permission  to  view  these  things 
from  another  side.  In  old  Europe  one  cannot  set  fire  to 
the  forests  without  at  the  same  time  burning  villages  and 
cities."  ^ 

Before  and  during  the  armistice  I  was  in  almost  con- 
stant touch  with  all  Russian  parties  within  the  country 
and  without,  and  received  detailed  accounts  of  the  chang- 
ing conditions  of  the  people,  which,  although  conflicting 
in  many  details,  enabled  me  to  form  a  tolerably  correct 
picture  of  the  trend  of  things  and  to  forecast  what  was 
coming. 

Among  other  communications  I  received  proposals  from 
Moscow  with  the  request  that  I  should  present  them  to 
one  of  the  British  delegates,  who  was  supposed  to  be  then 
taking  an  active  interest,  or  at  any  rate  playing  a  promi- 
nent part,  in  the  reconstruction  of  Russia,  less  for  her 
own  sake  than  for  that  of  the  general  peace.  But  as  it 
chanced,  the  eminent  statesman  lacked  the  leisure  to  take 
cognizance  of  the  proposal,  the  object  of  which  was  to  hit 
upon  such  a  modus  vivendi  with  Russia  as  would  enable 
her  united  peoples  to  enter  upon  a  normal  course  of 
national  existence  without  further  delay.  Incidentally 
it  would  have  put  an  end  to  certain  conversations  then 

^  Cf.  Journal  des  Debals,  August  13,  1919.  Article  by  M.  Auguste  Giiu- 
vain. 

350 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD  RUSSIA 

going  forward  with  a  view  to  a  friendly  understanding 
between  Russia  and  Germany.  It  would  also,  I  had 
reason  to  believe,  have  divided  the  speculative  Bolshevist 
group  from  the  extreme  bloodthirsty  faction,  produced  a 
complete  schism  in  the  party,  and  secured  an  armistice 
which  would  have  prevented  the  Allies'  subsequent  de- 
feats at  Murmansk,  Archangel,  and  Odessa.  Truth 
prompts  me  to  add  that  these  desirable  by-results,  al- 
though held  out  as  inducements  and  characterized  as 
readily  attainable,  were  guaranteed  only  by  the  unofficial 
pledge  of  men  whose  good  faith  was  notoriously  doubtful. 

The  document  submitted  to  me  is  worth  summarizing. 
It  contained  a  lucid,  many-sided,  and  plausible  account  of 
the  Russian  situation.  Among  other  things,  it  was  a 
confession  of  the  enormity  of  the  crimes  perpetrated,  on 
both  sides,  it  said,  which  it  ascribed  largely  to  the  brutaliz- 
ing effects  of  the  World  War,  waged  under  disastrous  con- 
ditions unknown  in  other  lands.  Myriads  of  practically 
unarmed  men  had  been  exposed  during  the  campaign  to 
wholesale  slaughter,  or  left  to  die  in  slow  agonies  where 
they  fell,  or  were  killed  off  by  famine  and  disease,  for  the 
triumph  of  a  cause  which  they  never  understood,  but  had 
recently  been  told  was  that  of  foreign  capitalists.  In  the 
demoralization  that  ensued  all  restraints  fell  aw^ay.  The 
entire  social  fabric,  from  groundwork  to  summit,  was  rent, 
and  society,  convulsed  with  bestial  passions,  tore  its  own 
members  to  pieces.  Russia  ran  amuck  among  the  nations. 
That  was  the  height  of  war  frenzy.  Since  then,  the 
document  went  on,  passion  had  abated  sensibly  and  a 
number  of  well-intentioned  men  who  had  been  swept 
onward  by  the  current  were  fast  coming  to  their  senses, 
while  others  were  already  sane,  eager  to  stem  it  and 
anxious  for  moral  sympathy  from  outside. 

From  out  of  the  revolutionary  welter,  the  expose  con- 
tinued, certain  hopeful  phenomena  had  emerged  sympto- 

351 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

matic  of  a  new  spirit.  Conditions  conducive  to  equality 
existed,  although  real  equality  was  still  a  somewhat  re- 
mote ideal.  But  the  tendencies  over  the  whole  sphere 
of  Russian  social,  moral,  and  political  life  had  undergone 
remarkable  and  invigorating  changes  in  the  direction  of 
"reasonable  democracy."  Many  wholesome  reforms  had 
been  attempted,  and  some  were  partially  realized,  es- 
pecially in  elementary  instruction,  which  was  being  spread 
clumsily,  no  doubt,  as  yet,  but  extensively  and  equally, 
being  absolutely  gratuitous.^ 

Various  other  -so-called  ameliorations  were  enumerated 
in  this  obviously  partial  expose,  which  was  followed  by  an 
apology  for  certain  prominent  individuals,  who,  having 
been  swept  off  their  feet  by  the  revolutionary  floods, 
would  gladly  get  back  to  firm  land  and  help  to  extricate  the 
nation  from  the  Serbonian  bog  in  which  it  was  sinking. 
They  admitted  a  share  of  the  responsibility  for  having 
set  in  motion  a  vast  juggernaut  chariot,  which,  however, 
they  had  arrested,  but  hoped  to  expiate  past  errors  by 
future  zeal.  At  the  same  time  they  urged  that  it  was  not 
they  who  had  demoralized  the  army  or  abolished  the 
death  penalty  or  thrown  open  the  sluice-gates  to  anarchist 
floods.  On  the  contrary,  they  claimed  to  have  reorganized 
the  national  forces,  reintroduced  the  severest  discipline 
ever  known,  appointed  experienced  officers,  and  restored 
capital  punishment.  Nor  was  it  they,  but  their  pred- 
ecessors, they  added,  who  had  ruined  the  transport  ser- 
vice of  the  country  and  caused  the  food  scarcity. 

These  individuals  would,  it  was  said,  welcome  peace 
and  friendship  with  the  Entente,  and  give  particularly 
favorable  consideration  to  any  proposal  coming  from  the 

'  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Bolshevist  government  under  Luna- 
tcharsky  has  made  a  point  of  furthering  the  arts,  sciences,  and  elementary 
instruction.  All  reports  from  foreign  travelers  and  from  eminent  Russians 
— one  of  these  my  university  fellow-student,  now  perpetual  secretary  of 
the  Academy — agree  about  this  silver  lining  to  a  dark  cloud. 

352 


AITITUDE  TOWARD  RUSSIA 

English-speaking  peoples,  in  whom  they  were  disposed 
to  place  confidenee  under  certain  simple  conditions.  The 
need  for  these  conditions  would  not  he  gainsaid  by  the 
British  and  American  governments  if  they  recalled  to 
mind  the  treatment  which  they  had  theretofore  meted 
out  to  the  Russian  people.  At  that  moment  no  Russian 
of  any  party  regarded  or  could  regard  the  Allies  without 
grounded  suspicions,  for  while  repudiating  interference 
in  domestic  affairs,  the  French,  Americans,  and  British 
were  striving  hard  to  influence  every  party  in  Russia, 
and  were  even  believed  to  harbor  designs  on  certain 
provinces,  such  as  the  Caucasus  and  Siberia.  Color  w^as 
imparted  to  these  misgivings  by  the  circumstance  that  the 
Allied  governments  were  openly  countenancing  the  dis- 
memberment of  the  country  by  detaching  non-Russian 
and  even  Russian  elements  from  the  main  body.  It 
behooved  the  Allies  to  dissipate  this  mistrust  by  issuing 
a  statement  of  their  policy  in  unmistakable  terms,  re- 
pudiating schemes  for  territorial  gains,  renouncing  inter- 
ference in  domestic  affairs  and  complicity  in  the  work  of 
disintegrating  the  country.  Russia  and  her  affairs  must 
be  left  to  Russians,  who  would  not  grudge  economic  con- 
cessions as  a  reasonable  quid  pro  quo. 

The  proposal  further  insisted  that  the  declaration  of 
policy  should  be  at  once  followed  by  the  despatch  of  tw^o 
or  three  well-known  persons  acquainted  with  Russia  and 
Russian  affairs,  and  enjoying  the  confidence  of  European 
peoples,  to  inquire  into  the  conditions  of  the  country  and 
make  an  exhaustive  report.  This  mission,  it  was  added, 
need  not  be  official,  it  might  be  intrusted  to  individuals 
unattached  to  any  government. 

If  a  satisfactory  answer  to  this  proposal  w^ere  returned 
within  a  fortnight,  an  armistice  and  suspension  of  the 
secret  pourparlers  with  Germany  would,  I  was  told,  have 
followed.     That    this    compact    would    have    led    to    a 

353 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

settlement  of  the  Russian  problems  is  more  than  any 
one,  however  well  informed,  could  vouch  for,  but  I  had 
some  grounds  for  believing  the  move  to  be  genuine  and 
the  promises  overdone.  No  reasonable  motive  suggested 
itself  for  a  vulgar  hoax.  Moreover,  the  overture  dis- 
closed two  important  facts,  one  of  which  was  known  at  the 
time  only  to  the  Bolshevist  government — namely,  that 
secret  pourparlers  were  going  forward  between  Berlin  and 
Moscow  for  the  purpose  of  arriving  at  a  workable  under- 
standing between  the  two  governments,  and  that  the 
Allied  troops  at  Odessa,  Archangel,  and  Murmansk  were 
in  a  wretched  plight  and  in  direr  need  of  an  armistice  than 
the  Bolsheviki.^ 

I  mentioned  the  matter  summarily  to  one  of  the  del- 
egates, who  evinced  a  certain  interest  in  it  and  prom- 
ised to  discuss  it  at  length  later  on  with  a  view  to  action. 
Another  to  whom  I  unfolded  it  later  thought  it  would  be 
well  if  I  myself  started,  together  with  two  or  three  others, 
for  Moscow,  Petrograd,  Ekaterinodar,  and  other  places, 
and  reported  on  the  situation.  But  weeks  went  by  and 
nothing  was  done.^ 

1  had  interesting  talks  with  some  influential  delegates 
on  the  eve  of  the  invitation  issued  to  all  de  facto  govern- 
ments of  Russia  to  forgather  at  Prinkipo  for  a  symposium. 
They  admitted  frankly  at  the  time  that  they  had  no  policy 
and  were  groping  in  the  dark,  and  one  of  them  held  to  the 
dogma  that  no  light  from  outside  was  to  be  expected. 
They  gave  me  the  impression  that  underlying  the  impend- 
ing summons  was  the  conviction  that  Bolshevism,  divest- 
ed of  its  frenzied  manifestations,  was  a  rough  and  ready 
government  calumniously  blackened  by  unscrupulous  en- 
emies, criminal  perhaps  in  its  outbursts,  but  suited  in  its 

'  This  latter  fact  was  doubtless  known  to  the  British  government,  which 
decided  as  early  as  March  to  recall  the  J3ritish  troops  from  northern  Russia, 

2  I  published  the  facts  in  The  Daily  Telegraph,  April  21,  and  The  Public 
Ledger  of  Philadelphia,  April  10,  1919. 

354 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD  RUSSIA 

feasible  aims  to  the  peculiar  needs  of  a  peculiar  people, 
and  therefore  as  worthy  of  being  recognized  as  any  of  the 
others.  It  was  urged  that  it  had  already  lasted  a  con- 
siderable time  without  provoking  a  counter-movement 
worthy  of  the  name ;  that  the  stories  circulating  about  the 
horrors  of  which  it  was  guilty  were  demonstrably  exag- 
gerated; that  many  of  the  bloody  atrocities  were  to  be 
ascribed  to  crazy  individuals  on  both  sides;  that  the 
witnesses  against  Lenin  were  partial  and  untrustworthy; 
that  something  should  be  done  without  delay  to  solve  a 
pressing  problem,  and  that  the  Conference  could  think 
of  nothing  better,  nor,  in  fact,  of  any  alternative. 

To  me  the  principal  scheme  seemed  a  sinister  mistake, 
both  in  form  and  in  substance.  In  form,  because  it  nullified 
the  motives  which  determined  the  help  given  to  the 
Greeks,  Poles,  and  Serbs,  who  were  being  urged  to  crush 
the  Bolshevists,  and  left  the  Allies  without  good  grounds 
for  keeping  their  own  troops  in  Archangel,  Odessa,  and 
northern  Russia  to  stop  the  onward  march  of  Bolshevism. 
Some  governments  had  publicly  stigmatized  the  Bol- 
shevists as  cutthroats;  one  had  pledged  itself  never  to 
have  relations  with  them,  but  the  Prinkipo  invitation 
bespoke  a  resolve  to  cancel  these  judgments  and  declara- 
tions and  change  their  tack  as  an  improvement  on  doing 
nothing  at  all.  The  scheme  was  also  an  error  in  sub- 
stance, because  the  sole  motive  that  could  warrant  it 
was  the  hope  of  reconciling  the  warring  parties.  And 
that  hope  M-as  doomed  to  disappointment  from  the  outset. 

According  to  the  Prinkipo  project,  which  was  attributed 
to  President  Wilson,^  an  invitation  was  to  be  issued  to  all 
organized  groups  exercising  or  attempting  to  exercise 
political  authority  or  military  control  in  Siberia  and 
northern  Russia,  to  send  representatives  to  confer  with 

^  Colonel  House  is  said  to  have  dissociated  himself  from  the  President  on 
tliis  occasion. 

24  355 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

the  delegates  of  the  AlHed  and  Associated  Powers  on 
Prince's  Islands.  It  is  difficult  to  discuss  the  expedient 
seriously.  One  feels  like  a  member  of  the  little  people 
of  yore,  who  are  reported  to  have  consulted  an  oracle 
to  ascertain  what  they  must  do  to  keep  from  laughing 
during  certain  debates  on  public  affairs.  It  exposed  its 
ingenuous  authors  to  the  ridicule  of  the  world  and  made 
it  clear  to  the  dullest  apprehension  that  from  that  quarter, 
at  any  rate,  the  Russian  people,  as  a  whole,  must  expect 
neither  light  nor  leading,  nor  intelligent  appreciation 
of  their  terrible  plight.  There  is  a  sphere  of  influence 
in  the  human  intellect  between  the  reason  and  the  imag- 
ination, the  boundary  line  of  which  is  shadowy.  That 
sphere  would  seem  to  be  the  source  whence  some  of  the 
most  extraordinary  notions  creep  into  the  minds  of  men 
who  have  suddenly  come  into  a  position  of  power  which 
they  are  not  qualified  to  wield — the  nouveaux  puissants 
of  the  world  of  politics. 

To  the  credit  of  the  Supreme  Council  it  never  let 
offended  dignity  stand  between  itself  and  the  triumph 
of  any  of  the  various  causes  which  it  successively  took  in 
hand.  Time  and  again  it  had  been  addressed  by  the 
Russian  Bolshevist  government  in  the  most  opprobrious 
terms,  and  accused  not  merely  of  clothing  political  expedi- 
ency in  the  garb  of  spurious  idealism,  but  of  giving  the 
fore  place  in  political  life  to  sordid  interests,  over  which 
a  cloak  of  humanitarianism  had  been  deftly  thrown. 
One  official  missive  from  the  Bolshevist  government  to 
President  Wilson  is  worth  quoting  from :  ^  "  We  should 
like  to  learn  with  more  precision  how  you  conceive  the 
Society  of  Nations  ?  When  you  insist  on  the  independence 
of  Belgium,  of  Serbia,  of  Poland,  you  surely  mean  that 
the  masses  of  the  people  are  everywhere  to  take  over  the 

1  It  war,  sent  at  the  end  of  October,  1918,  and  to  my  knowledge  was  not 
published  in  full. 

356 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD  RUSSIA 

administration  of  the  country.  But  it  is  odd  that  you 
did  not  also  require  the  emancipation  of  Ireland,  of 
Egypt,  of  India,  and  of  the  Philippines.  .  .  . 

"As  we  concluded  peace  with  the  German  Kaiser,  for 
whom  you  have  no  more  consideration  than  we  have  for 
you,  so  we  are  minded  to  make  peace  with  you.  We 
propose,  therefore,  the  discussion,  in  concert  with  our 
allies,  of  the  following  questions :  (i)  Are  the  French  and 
English  governments  ready  to  give  up  exacting  the  blood 
of  the  Russian  people  if  this  people  consent  to  pay  them 
ransom  and  to  compensate  them  in  that  way?  (2)  If 
the  answer  is  in  the  affirmative,  what  ransom  would  the 
Allies  want  (railway  concessions,  gold  mines,  or  territories)  ? 

"We  also  look  forward  to  your  telling  us  exactly 
whether  the  future  Society  of  Nations  will  be  a  joint 
stock  enterprise  for  the  exploitation  of  Russia,  and  in 
particular — as  your  French  allies  require — for  forcing 
Russia  to  refund  the  milliards  which  their  bankers  fur- 
nished to  the  Tsarist  government,  or  whether  the  Society 
of  Nations  will  be  something  different,  ..." 

As  soon  as  the  Prinkipo  motion  was  passed  by  the 
delegates  I  was  informed  by  telephone,  and  I  lost  no  time 
in  communicating  the  tidings  to  Russia's  official  repre- 
sentatives in  Paris.  The  plan  astounded  them.  They 
could  hardly  believe  that,  while  hopefully  negotiating 
with  the  anti-Bolshevists,  the  Conference  was  desirous 
at  the  same  time  of  opening  pourparlers  with  the  Leninists, 
between  whom  and  them  antagonism  was  not  merely 
political,  but  personal  and  vindictive,  like  that  of  two 
Albanians  in  a  blood  feud.  I  suggested  that  the  scheme 
should  be  thwarted  at  its  inception,  and  that  for  this  pur- 
pose I  should  be  authorized  by  the  representatives  of  the 
four  ^  constructive  governments  in  Russia  to  make  known 

1  Omsk,  Ekaterinodar,  Archangel,  and  the  Crimea.  The  last-named  dis- 
appeared soon  afterward. 

357 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

their  decision.  I  was  accordingly  empowered  to  announce 
to  the  world  that  they  would  categorically  refuse  to  send 
any  representatives  to  confer  with  the  assassins  of  their 
kinsmen  and  the  destroyers  of  their  country,  and  that 
under  no  circumstances  would  they  swerve  from  that 
attitude.  Having  received  the  authorization,  I  cabled 
to  the  United  States  and  Britain  that  the  projected  meet- 
ing would  come  to  naught,  owing  to  the  refusal  of  all 
constructive  elements  to  agree  to  any  compromise  with 
the  Bolsheviki;  that  in  the  opinion  of  Russia's  representa- 
tives in  Paris  the  advance  made  by  the  plenipotentiaries 
would  strengthen  the  Bolshevist  movement,  render  the 
civil  war  more  merciless  than  before,  and  raise  up  formid- 
able difficulties  to  the  establishment  of  the  League  of 
Nations, 

But  the  plenipotentiaries  did  not  yet  give  up  their  cause 
as  lost.  By  way  of  "saving  their  face,"  they  unofficially 
approached  the  Russian  Ministers  in  Paris,  whom  they 
had  not  deigned  to  consult  on  the  subject  before  making 
the  plunge,  and  exhorted  them  to  give  at  least  a  formal 
assent  to  the  proposal,  which  would  commit  them  to  noth- 
ing and  would  enable  them  to  withdraw  without  loss  of 
dignity.  They,  on  their  part,  undertook  to  smooth  the 
road  to  the  best  of  their  ability.  Thus  it  would  be  un- 
necessary, they  explained,  for  the  Ministers  of  the  con- 
structive governments  or  their  substitutes  to  come  into 
contact  with  the  slayers  of  their  kindred;  they  w^ould 
occupy  different  wings  of  the  hotel  at  Prinkipo,  and  never 
meet  their  adversaries.  The  delegates  would  see  to  that. 
"Then  why  should  we  go  there  at  all  if  discussion  be 
superfluous?"  asked  the  Russians.  "Because  the  Allied 
governments  desire  to  ascertain  the  condition  of  Russia 
and  your  conception  of  the  measures  that  would  con- 
tribute to  ameliorate  it, ' '  was  the  reply.  ' '  Prince's  Islands 
is  not  the  right  place  to  study  the  Russian  situation,  nor 

358 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD  RUSSIA 

is  It  reasonable  to  expect  us  to  journey  thither  in  order  to 
tell  subordinates,  who  have  no  knowledge  of  our  country, 
what  wc  can  tell  them  and  their  principals  in  Paris  in 
greater  detail  and  with  confirmatory  documents.  More- 
over, the  delegates  you  have  appointed  have  no  qualifica- 
tion to  judge  of  Russia's  plight  and  potentialities.  They 
know  neither  the  country  nor  its  language  nor  its  people 
nor  its  politics,  yet  you  want  us  to  travel  all  the  way  to 
Turkey  to  tell  them  what  we  think,  in  order  that  they 
should  return  from  Turkey  to  Paris  and  report  to  your 
Ministers  what  we  said  and  what  we  could  have  unfolded 
directly  to  the  IMinisters  themselves  long  ago  and  are 
ready  to  propound  to  them  to-day  or  to-morrow. 

"The  project  is  puerile  and  your  tactics  are  baleful. 
Your  Ministers  branded  the  Bolshevists  as  criminals,  and 
the  French  gov^emment  publicly  announced  that  it  would 
enter  into  no  relations  with  them.  In  spite  of  that,  all 
the  Allied  governments  have  now  offered  to  enter  into 
relations  with  them.  Now  you  admit  that  you  made  a 
slip,  and  you  promise  to  correct  it  if  only  we  consent  to 
save  your  face  arid  go  on  a  wild-goose  chase  to  Prinkipo. 
But  for  us  that  journey  would  be  a  recantation  of  our 
principles.     That  is  why  we  are  unable  to  make  it." 

The  Prinkipo  incident,  which  began  in  the  region  of  high 
politics,  ended  in  comedy.  A  number  of  more  or  less 
witty  epigrams  were  coined  at  the  expense  of  the  pleni- 
potentiaries, the  scheme,  set  in  a  stronger  light  than  it  was 
meant  to  endure,  assumed  a  grotesque  shape,  and  its  pro- 
moters strove  to  consign  it  as  best  they  could  to  oblivion. 
But  the  Sphinx  question  of  Russia's  future  remained,  and 
the  penalties  for  failure  to  solve  it  anght  waxed  more  and 
more  deterrent.  The  supreme  arbiters  had  cognizance  of 
them,  had,  in  fact,  enumerated  them  when  proclaiming  the 
impossibility  of  establishing  a  durable  peace  or  a  solid 
League  of  Nations  as  long  as  Russia  continued  to  be  a 

359 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

prey  to  anarchy.  But  even  with  the  prizes  and  penalties 
before  their  eyes  to  entice  and  spur  them,  they  proved 
unequal  to  the  task  of  devising  an  intelligent  policy.  Fit- 
ful and  incoherent,  their  efforts  were  either  incapable  of 
being  realized  or,  when  feasible,  were  mischievous.  Thus, 
by  degrees,  they  hardened  the  great  Slav  nation  against 
the  Entente. 

The  reader  will  be  prepared  to  learn  that  the  overtures 
made  to  the  Bolsheviki  kindled  the  anger  of  the  patriotic 
Russians  at  home,  who  had  been  looking  to  the  Western 
nations  for  salvation  and  making  veritable  holocausts  in 
order  to  merit  it.  Every  observer  could  perceive  the  re- 
percussion of  this  sentiment  in  Paris,  and  I  received  ample 
proofs  of  it  from  Siberia.  There  the  leaders  and  the  popu- 
lation unhesitatingly  turned  for  assistance  to  Japan.  For 
this  there  were  excellent  reasons.  The  only  government 
which  throughout  the  war  knew  its  own  mind  and  pur- 
sued a  consistent  and  an  intelligible  policy  toward  Russia 
was  that  of  Tokio.  This  point  is  worth  making  at  a  time 
when  Japan  is  regarded  as  a  Laodicean  convert  to  the 
invigorating  ideas  of  the  Western  peoples,  at  heart  a  back- 
slider and  a  potential  schismatic.  She  is  charged  w^th 
making  interest  the  mainspring  of  her  action  in  her  inter- 
course with  other  nations.  The  charge  is  true.  Only  a 
Candide  would  expect  to  see  her  moved  by  altruism  and 
self-denial,  in  a  company  which  penalizes  these  virtues. 
Community  of  interests  is  the  link  that  binds  Japan  to 
Britain.  A  like  bond  had  subsisted  between  her  and 
Tsarist  Russia.  I  helped  to  create  it.  Her  statesmen, 
who  have  no  taste  for  sonorous  phraseology,  did  not  think 
it  necessary  to  give  it  a  more  fashionable  name.  This  did 
not  prevent  the  Japanese  from  being  chivalrously  loyal  to 
their  allies  under  the  strain  of  powerful  temptations,  true 
to  the  spirit  and  the  letter  of  their  engagements.  But 
although  they  made  no  pretense  to  lofty  purpose,  their 

360 


ATTITUDK  TOWARD  RUSSIA 

political  maxims  differ  nowise  from  those  of  the  great 
European  states,  whose  territorial,  economic,  and  military- 
interests  have  been  religiously  safeguarded  by  the  Treaty 
of  Versailles.  True,  the  statesmen  of  Tokio  shrink  from 
the  hybrid  combination  of  two  contradictions  linked  to- 
gether by  a  sentimental  fallacy.  Their  unpopularity 
among  Anglo-Saxons  is  the  result  of  speculations  about 
their  future  intentions;  in  other  words,  they  are  being 
punished,  as  certain  of  the  delegates  at  the  Conference 
have  been  eulogized,  not  for  what  they  actually  did,  but 
for  what  it  is  assumed  they  are  desirous  of  achieving. 
Toward  Russia  they  played  the  same  game  that  their  allies 
were  playing  there  and  in  Europe,  only  more  frankly  and 
systematically.  They  applied  the  two  principal  maxims 
which  lie  at  the  root  of  international  politics  to-day — do 
ut  des,  and  the  nation  that  is  capable  of  leading  others 
has  the  right  and  the  duty  to  lead  them.  And  they  estab- 
lished a  valuable  reputation  for  fulfilling  their  compacts 
conscientiously.  Nippon,  then,  would  have  helped  her 
Russian  neighbors,  and  she  expected  to  be  helped  by  them 
in  return.  Have  not  the  Allies,  she  asked,  compelled 
Poland,  Czechoslovakia,  and  Jugoslavia  to  pay  them  in 
cash  for  their  emancipation? 

Russians,  who  have  no  color  prejudices,  hit  it  off  with 
the  Japanese,  by  whom  they  are  liked  in  return.  That 
the  two  peoples  should  feel  drawn  to  each  other  politically 
is,  therefore,  natural,  and  that  they  will  strike  up  economic 
agreements  in  the  future  seems  to  many  inevitable  and 
legitimate.  One  such  agreement  was  on  the  point  of 
being  signed  between  them  and  the  anti-Bolshevists  of 
Omsk  immediately  after,  and  in  consequence  of,  the 
Allies'  ill-considered  invitation  to  Lenin  and  Trotzky  to 
delegate  representatives  to  Prinkipo.  This  convention, 
I  have  reason  to  believe,  was  actually  drafted,  and  was 
about  to  be  signed.     And  the  adverse  influence  that  sud- 

361 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

denly  made  itself  felt  and  hindered  the  compact  came 
not  from  Russia,  but  from  western  Europe.  It  would  be 
unfruitful  to  dwell  further  on  this  matter  here,  beyond 
recording  the  belief  of  many  Russians  that  the  zeal  of  the 
English-speaking  peoples  for  the  well-being  of  Siberia, 
where  they  intend  to  maintain  troops  after  having  with- 
drawn them  from  Europe,  is  the  counter-move  to  Japan's 
capacity  and  wish  to  co-operate  with  the  population  of 
that  rich  country.  This  assumption  may  be  groundless, 
bat  it  will  surprise  only  those  who  fail  to  note  how  often 
the  flag  of  principle  is  unfurled  over  economic  interests. 

The  delegates  were  not  all  discouraged  by  their  dis- 
comfiture over  the  Prinkipo  project.  Some  of  them  still 
hankered  after  an  agreement  with  the  Bolshevists  which 
would  warrant  them  in  including  the  Russian  problem 
among  the  tasks  provisionally  achieved.  President  Wil- 
son despatched  secret  envoys  to  Moscow  to  strike  up  an 
accord  with  Lenin, ^  but  although  the  terms  which  Mr. 
Bullitt  obtained  were  those  which  had  in  advance  been 
declared  satisfactory,  he  drew  back  as  soon  as  they  were 
agreed  to.  And  he  assigned  no  reason  for  this  change  of 
attitude.  Whether  the  brightening  of  the  prospects  of  Kol- 
chak  and  Denikin  had  modified  his  judgment  on  the  ques- 
tion of  expediency  must  remain  a  matter  of  conjecture. 
It  is  hardly  necessary,  however,  to  point  out  once  more 
that  this  sudden  improvisation  of  schemes  which  were 
abandoned  again  at  the  last  moment  tended  to  lower  the 
not  particularly  high  estimate  set  by  the  ethnic  wards  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  peoples  on  the  moral  guidance  of  their 
self-constituted  guardians. 

An  ardent  champion  of  the  Allied  nations  in  France 
wrote:  "We  have  never  had  a  Russian  policy  which  was 
all  of  one  piece.  We  have  never  synthetized  any  but 
contradictory  conceptions.     This  is  so  true  that  one  may 

'  See  Chapter  IV   "Censorship  and  Secrecy,"   p.  132. 

362 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD  RUSSIA 

safely  affirm  that  if  Russian  patriotism  has  been  sustained 
by  our  vclleitics  of  action,  Russian  destructiveness  has 
been  encouraged  by  our  velleities  of  desertion.  We 
joined,  so  to  say,  both  camps,  and  our  velleities  of  de- 
sertion occasionally  getting  the  upper  hand  of  our  velleities 
of  action  ...  we  carry  out  nothing."  ^ 

Toward  Kolchak  and  Denikin  the  attitude  of  the  Su- 
preme Council  varied  considerably.  It  was  currently  re- 
ported in  Paris  that  the  Admiral  had  had  the  misfortune 
to  arouse  the  displeasure  of  the  two  Conference  chiefs 
by  some  casual  manifestation  of  a  frame  of  mind  which 
was  resented,  perhaps  a  movement  of  independence,  to 
which  distance  or  the  medium  of  transmission  imparted  a 
flavor  of  disrespect.  Anyhow,  the  Russian  leader  was  for 
some  time  under  a  cloud,  which  darkened  the  prospects  of 
his  cause.  And  as  for  Denikin,  he  appeared  to  the  other 
great  delegate  as  a  self-advertising  braggart. 

These  mental  portraits  were  retouched  as  the  fortune  of 
war  favored  the  pair.  And  their  cause  benefited  corre- 
spondingly. To  this  improvement  influences  at  work  in 
London  contributed  materially.  For  the  anti-Bolshevist 
currents  which  made  themselves  felt  in  certain  state  de- 
partments in  that  capital,  where  there  were  several  ir- 
reconcilable policies,  were  powerful  and  constant.  By 
the  month  of  May  the  Conference  had  turned  half- 
heartedly from  Lenin  and  Trotzky  to  Kolchak  and 
Denikin,  but  its  mode  of  negotiating  bore  the  mark  pecul- 
iar to  the  diplomacy  of  the  new  era  of  "open  covenants 
openly  arrived  at."  The  delegates  in  Paris  communicated 
with  the  two  leaders  in  Russia  "over  the  heads"  and 
without  the  knowledge  of  their  authorized  representatives 
in  Paris,  just  as  they  had  issued  peremptory  orders  to 
"the  Rumanian  government  at  Bucharest"  over  the  heads 
of  its  chiefs,  who  were  actually  in  the  French  capital. 

^  Pertinax  in  V  Echo  de  Paris,  July  5,  1919. 

363 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

The  proximate  motives  that  determined  several  im- 
portant decisions  of  the  Secret  Council,  although  of  no 
political  moment,  are  of  sufficient  psychological  interest  to 
warrant  mention.  They  shed  a  light  on  the  concreteness, 
directness,  and  simplicity  of  the  workings  of  the  states- 
men's minds  when  engaged  in  transacting  international 
business.  For  example,  the  particular  moment  for  the 
recognition  of  new  communities  as  states  was  fixed  by 
wholly  extrinsical  circumstances.  A  food-distributer,  for 
instance,  or  the  Secretary  of  a  Treasury,  wanted  a  receipt 
for  expenditure  abroad  from  the  people  that  benefited  by 
it.  As  a  document  of  this  character  presupposes  the  ex- 
istence of  a  state  and  a  government,  the  official  dispenser 
of  food  or  money  was  loath  to  go  to  the  aid  of  any  nation 
which  was  not  a  state  or  which  lacked  a  properly  con- 
stituted government.  Hence,  in  some  cases  the  Con- 
ference had  to  create  both  on  the  spur  of  the  moment. 
Thus  the  reason  why  Finland's  independence  received 
the  hall-mark  of  the  Powers  when  it  did  was  because 
the  United  States  government  was  generously  preparing 
to  give  aid  to  the  Finns  and  had  to  get  in  return  proper 
receipts  signed  by  competent  authorities  representing  the 
state.  ^  Had  it  not  been  for  this  immediate  need  of  valid 
receipts,  the  act  of  recognition  might  have  been  post- 
poned in  the  same  way  as  was  the  marking  off  of  the 
frontiers.  And  like  considerations  led  to  like  results  in 
other  cases.  Czechoslovakia's  independence  was  formally 
recognized  for  the  same  reason,  as  one  of  its  leading  men 
frankly  admitted. 

One  of  the  serious  worries  of  the  Conference  chiefs  in 
their  dealings  with  Russia  was  the  lack  of  a  recognized 
government  there,  qualified  to  sign  receipts  for  advances 
of  money  and  munitions.     And  as  they  could  not  resolve 

^  This  admission  was  made  to  a  distinguished  member  of  the  Diplomatic 
Corps. 

364 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD  RUSSIA 

to  accord  recognition  to  any  of  the  existing  administra- 
tions, they  hit  upon  the  middle  course,  that  of  promoting 
the  anti-Bolshcvists  to  the  rank  of  a  community,  not, 
indeed,  sovereign  or  independent,  but  deserving  of  every 
kind  of  assistance  except  the  despatch  of  Allied  troops. 
Assistance  was  already  being  given  liberally,  but  the 
necessity  was  felt  for  justifying  it  formally.  And  the  two 
delegates  went  to  work  as  though  they  were  hatching 
some  dark  and  criminal  plot.  wSccretly  despatching  a 
message  to  Admiral  Kolchak,  they  put  a  number  of 
questions  to  him  which  he  was  not  qualified  to  answer 
without  first  consulting  his  official  advisers  in  Paris. 
Yet  these  advisers  were  not  apprised  by  the  Secret  Coun- 
cil of  what  was  being  done.  Nay,  more,  the  French 
Foreign  Office  was  not  notified.  By  the  merest  chance  I 
got  wind  of  the  matter  and  published  the  official  mes- 
sage.^ It  summoned  the  Admiral  to  bind  himself  to 
convene  a  Constituent  Assembly  as  soon  as  he  arrived  in 
Moscow;  to  hold  free  elections;  to  repudiate  definitely 
the  old  regime  and  all  that  it  implied;  to  recognize  the 
independence  of  Poland  and  Finland,  whose  frontiers 
would  be  determined  by  the  League  of  Nations;  to 
avail  himself  of  the  advice  and  co-operation  of  the 
League  in  coming  to  an  understanding  with  the  border 
states,  and  to  acquiesce  in  the  decision  of  the  Peace 
Conference  respecting  the  future  status  of  Bessarabia. 
Kolchak's  answer  was  described  as  clear  when  "de- 
cipherable," and  to  his  credit,  he  frankly  declined  to 
forestall  the  will  of  the  Constituent  Assembly  respect- 
ing those  border  states  which  owed  their  separate  ex- 
istence to  the  initiative  of  the  victorious  governments. 
But  the  Secret  Council  of  the  Conference  accepted  his 
answer,  and  relied  upon  it  as  an  adequate  reason   fot 

1  In  The  Daily  Telegraph,  June  19,  19 19,  and   in  The  Public  Ledger  of 
Philadelphia. 

365 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

continuing  the  assistance  which  they  had  been  giving 
him  theretofore. 

About  the  person  of  Kolchak  it  ought  to  be  superfluous 
to  say  more  than  that  he  is  an  upright  citizen  of  energy 
and  resolution,  as  patriotic  as  Fabricius,  as  disinterested 
and  unambitious  as  Cincinnatus.  To  his  credit  account, 
which  is  considerable,  stands  his  wonder-working  faith 
in  the  recuperative  forces  of  his  country  when  its  fortunes 
were  at  their  lowest  ebb.  With  buoyancy  and  confidence 
he  set  himself  the  task  of  rescuing  his  fellow-countrymen 
when  it  looked  as  hopeless  as  that  of  Xenophon  at 
Cunaxa.  He  created  an  army  out  of  nothing,  induced 
his  men  by  argument,  suasion,  and  example  to  shake  off 
the  virus  of  indiscipline  and  sacrifice  their  individual 
judgment  and  will  to  the  well-being  of  their  fellows.  He 
enjoined  nothing  upon  others  that  he  himself  was  not 
ready  to  undertake,  and  he  exposed  himself  time  and 
again  to  risks  greater  far  than  any  general  should  de- 
liberately incur.  Whether  he  succeeds  or  fails  in  his 
arduous  enterprise,  Kolchak,  by  his  preterhuman  patience 
and  sustained  energy  and  courage,  has  deserved  excep- 
tionally well  of  his  country,  and  could  afford  to  ignore  the 
current  legends  that  depict  him  in  the  crying  colors  of  a 
reactionary,  even  though  they  were  accepted  for  the  time 
by  the  most  exalted  among  the  Great  Unversed  in  Russian 
affairs.  One  may  dissent  from  his  policy  and  object  to 
some  of  his  lieutenants  and  to  many  of  his  partizans,  but 
from  the  single-minded,  patriotic  soldier  one  cannot  with- 
hold a  large  meed  of  praise.  Kolchak's  defects  are  mostly 
exaggerations  of  his  qualities.  His  remarkable  versatility 
is  purchased  at  the  price  of  fitfulness,  his  energy  displays 
itself  in  spurts,  and  his  impulsiveness  impairs  at  times  the 
successful  execution  of  a  plan  which  requires  unflagging 
constancy.  His  judgment  of  men  is  sometimes  at  fault, 
but  he  w^ould  never  hesitate  to  confer  a  high  post  upon 

366 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD  RUSSIA 

any  man  who  deserved  it.  He  is  democratic  m  the  current 
sense  of  the  word,  but  neither  a  doctrinaire  nor  a  faddist. 
A  discipHnarian  and  a  magnetic  personaHty  withal,  he 
charms  as  effectually  as  he  commands  his  soldiers.  He  is 
enlightened  enough,  like  the  great  Western  world- 
menders  in  their  moments  of  theorizing,  to  discountenance 
secrecy  and  hole-and-corner  agreements,  and,  what  is  still 
more  praiseworthy,  he  is  courageous  enough  to  practise 
the  doctrine. 

When  the  revolution  broke  out  Kolchak  was  at 
Sebastopol.  The  telegram  conveying  the  sensational 
tidings  of  the  outbreak  was  kept  secret  by  all  military 
commanders — except  himself.  He  unhesitatingly  sum- 
moned the  soldiers  and  sailors,  apprised  them  of  what 
had  taken  place,  gave  them  an  insight  into  the  true 
meaning  of  the  violent  upheaval,  and  asked  them  to  join 
with  him  in  a  heroic  endeavor  to  influence  the  course  of 
things,  in  the  direction  of  order  and  consolidation.  He 
gaged  aright  the  significance  of  the  revolution  and  the 
impossibility  of  confining  it  within  any  bounds,  political, 
moral,  or  geographical.  But  he  reasoned  that  a  band  of 
resolute  patriots  might  contrive  to  wrest  something  for 
the  country  from  the  hands  of  Fate.  It  was  with  this 
faith  and  hope  that  he  set  to  work,  and  soon  his  valiant 
army,  the  reclaimed  provinces,  and  the  improved  Russian 
outlook  were  eloquent  witnesses  to  his  worth,  whose 
testimony  no  legendary  reports,  however  well  received  in 
the  West,  could  weaken. 

How  ingrained  in  the  plenipotentiaries  was  their  prone- 
ness  for  what,  for  want  of  a  better  word,  may  be  termed 
conspirative  and  circuitous  action  m.ay  be  inferred  from 
the  record  of  their  official  and  unofficial  conversations  and 
acts.  When  holding  converse  with  Kolchak's  authorized 
agents  in  Paris  they  would  lay  down  hard  conditions, 
which  were  described  as  immutable;  and  yet  when  com- 

367 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

municating  with  the  Admiral  direct  they  would  submit 
to  him  terms  considerably  less  irksome,  unknown  to  his 
Paris  advisers,  thus  mystifying  both  and  occasioning 
friction  between  them  In  many  cases  the  contrast  be- 
tween the  two  sets  of  demands  was  disconcerting,  and  in 
all  it  tended  to  cause  misunderstandings  and  complicate 
the  relations  between  Kolchak  and  his  Paris  agents.  But 
he  continued  to  give  his  confidence  to  his  representatives, 
although  they  were  denied  that  of  the  delegates.  It 
would,  of  course,  be  grossly  unfair  to  impute  anything 
like  disingenuousness  to  plenipotentiaries  engaged  upon 
issues  of  this  magnitude,  but  it  was  an  unfortunate  co- 
incidence that  they  were  known  to  regard  some  of  the 
members  of  the  Russian  Council  in  Paris  with  disfavor, 
and  would  have  been  glad  to  see  them  superseded.  When 
Nansen's  project  to  feed  the  starving  population  of  Russia 
was  first  mooted,  Kolchak's  Ministers  in  Paris  were  ap- 
proached on  the  subject,  and  the  Allies'  plan  was  pro- 
pounded to  them  so  defectively  or  vaguely  as  to  give  them 
the  impression  that  the  co-operation  of  the  Bolshevist 
government  was  part  of  the  program.  They  were  also 
allowed  to  think  that  during  the  work  of  feeding  the 
people  the  despatch  of  munitions  and  other  military 
necessaries  to  Kolchak  and  his  army  would  be  discon- 
tinued. Naturally,  the  scheme,  weighted  with  these  two 
accompaniments,  was  unacceptable  to  Kolchak's  repre- 
sentatives in  Paris.  But,  strange  to  say,  in  the  official 
notification  which  the  plenipotentiaries  telegraphed  at  the 
same  time  to  the  Admiral  direct,  neither  of  these  ob- 
noxious riders  was  included,  so  that  the  proposal  assumed 
a  different  aspect. 

Another  example  of  these  singular  tactics  is  suppHed  by 
their  pourparlers  with  the  Admiral's  delegates  about  the 
future  international  status  of  Finland,  whose  help  was 
then  being  solicited  to  free  Petrograd  from  the  Bolshevist 

368 


ArriTUDE  TOWARD  RUSSIA 

yoke.  The  Finns  insisted  on  the  preliminary  recognition 
of  their  complete  independence  by  the  Russians.  Kol- 
chak's  representatives  shrank  from  bartering  any  terri- 
tories which  had  belonged  to  the  state  on  their  own  sole 
responsibility.  None  the  less,  as  the  subject  was  being 
theoretically  threshed  out  in  all  its  bearings,  the  members 
of  the  Russian  Council  in  Paris  inquired  of  the  Allies 
whether  the  Finns  had  at  least  renounced  their  preten- 
sions to  the  province  of  Karelia.  But  the  spokesmen  of 
the  Conference  replied  elusively,  giving  them  no  assurance 
that  the  claim  had  been  relinquished.  Thereupon  they 
naturally  concluded  that  the  Finns  either  still  maintained 
their  demand  or  else  had  not  yet  modified  their  former 
decision  on  the  matter,  and  they  deemed  it  their  duty  to 
report  in  this  sense  to  their  chief.  Yet  the  plenipoten- 
tiaries, in  their  message  on  the  subject  to  Kolchak,  which 
was  sent  about  the  same  time,  assured  him  that  the  an- 
nexation of  Karelia  was  no  longer  insisted  upon,  and  that 
the  Finns  would  not  again  put  forward  the  claim!  One 
hardly  knows  what  to  think  of  tactics  like  these.  In  their 
talks  with  the  spokesmen  of  certain  border  states  of  Rus- 
sia the  official  representatives  of  the  three  European 
Powers  at  the  Conference  employed  language  that  gave 
rise  to  misunderstandings  which  may  have  untoward  con- 
sequences in  the  future.  One  would  like  to  believe  that 
these  misunderstandings  were  caused  by  mere  slips  of  the 
tongue,  which  should  not  have  been  taken  literally  by 
those  to  whom  they  were  addressed;  but  in  the  mean- 
while they  have  become  not  only  the  source  of  high,  pos- 
sibly delusive,  hopes,  but  the  basis  of  elaborate  policies. 
For  example,  Esthonian  and  Lettish  Ministers  were  given 
to  understand  that  they  would  be  permitted  to  send  dip- 
lomatic legations  to  Petrograd  as  soon  as  Russia  was  re- 
constituted, a  mode  of  intercourse  which  presupposes  the 
full  independence  of  all  the  countries  concerned.     A  con- 

369 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

stitution  was  also  drawn  up  for  Esthonia  by  one  of  the 
Great  Powers,  which  started  with  the  postulate  that  each 
people  was  to  be  its  own  master.  Consequently,  the  two 
nations  in  question  were  warranted  in  looking  forward  to 
receiving  that  complete  independence.  And  if  such  was, 
indeed,  the  intention  of  the  Great  Powers,  there  is  nothing 
further  to  be  said  on  the  score  of  straightforwardness  or 
precision.  But  neither  in  the  terms  submitted  to  Kolchak 
nor  in  those  to  which  his  Paris  agents  were  asked  to  give 
their  assent  was  the  independence  of  either  country  as 
much  as  hinted  at.^ 

These  may  perhaps  seem  trivial  details,  but  they  enable 
us  to  estimate  the  methods  and  the  organizing  arts  of  the 
statesmen  upon  whose  skill  in  resource  and  tact  in  dealing 
v/ith  their  fellows  depended  the  new  synthesis  of  inter- 
national life  and  ethics  which  they  were  engaged  in  real- 
izing. It  would  be  superfluous  to  investigate  the  effect 
upon  the  Russians,  or,  indeed,  upon  any  of  the  peoples 
represented  in  Paris,  of  the  Secret  Council's  conspirative 
deliberations  and  circuitous  procedure,  which  were  in 
such  strong  contrast  to  the  "open  covenants  openly 
arrived  at"  to  which  in  their  public  speeches  they  paid 
such  high  tribute. 

The  main  danger,  which  the  Allies  redoubted  from  fail- 
ure to  restore  tranquillity  in  Russia,  M^as  that  Germany 
might  accomplish  it  and,  owing  to  her  many  advantages, 
might  secure  a  privileged  position  in  the  country  and  use 
it  as  a  stepping-stone  to  material  prosperity,  military 
strength,  and  political  ascendancy.  This  feat  she  could 
accomplish  against  considerable  odds.  She  would  achieve 
it  easily  if  the  Allies  unwittingly  helped  her,  as  they  were 
doing. 


1  In  July  M.  Pichon  lold  the  Esthonian  delegates  that  France  recognized 
the  independence  of  their  country  in  j)rinciplc.  But  this  declaration  was 
not  taken  seriously,  cither  by  the  Russians  or  by  the  French. 

2>7o 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD  RUSSIA 

Unfortunately  the  Allied  governments  had  not  much 
hope  of  succeeding.  If  they  had  been  capable  of  elaborat- 
ing a  comprehensive  plan,  they  no  longer  possessed  the 
means  of  executing  it.  But  they  devised  none.  "The 
fact  is,"  one  of  the  Conference  leaders  exclaimed,  "we 
have  no  policy  toward  Russia.  Neither  do  we  possess 
adequate  data  for  one." 

They  strove  to  make  good  this  capital  omission  by 
erecting  a  paper  wall  between  Germany  and  her  great 
Slav  neighbor.  The  plan  was  simple.  The  Teutons  were 
to  be  compelled  to  disinterest  themselves  in  the  affairs  of 
Russia,  with  whose  destinies  their  own  are  so  closely  bound 
up.  But  they  soon  realized  that  such  a  partition  is  use- 
less as  a  breakwater  against  the  tidal  wave  of  Teutondom, 
and  Germany  is  still  destined  to  play  the  part  of  Russia's 
steward  and  majordomo. 

How  could  it  be  otherwise?  Germany  and  Russia  are 
near  neighbors.  Their  economic  relations  have  been  con- 
tinuous for  ages,  and  the  Allies  have  made  them  indispen- 
sable in  the  future;  Russia  is  ear-marked  as  Germany's 
best  colony.  The  two  peoples  are  become  interdependent. 
The  Teuton  will  recognize  the  Slav  as  an  ally  in  economics, 
and  will  pay  himself  politically.  Who  will  now  thwart  or 
check  this  process?  Russia  must  live,  and  therefore  buy 
and  sell,  barter  and  negotiate.  Can  a  parchment  treaty 
hinder  or  invalidate  her  dealings?  Can  it  prevent  an 
admixture  of  politics  in  commercial  arrangements,  seeing 
that  they  are  but  two  aspects  of  one  and  the  same  trans- 
action? It  is  worthy  of  note  that  a  question  which  goes 
to  the  quick  of  the  matter  was  never  mooted.  It  is  this : 
Is  it  an  essential  element  of  the  future  ordering  of  the  world 
that  Germany  shall  play  no  part  whatever  in  its  progress  ? 
Is  it  to  be  assumed  that  she  will  always  content  herself 
with  being  treated  as  the  incorrigible  enemy  of  civilization  ? 
And,  if  not,  what  do  all  these  checks  and  barriers  amount  to  ? 

25  371 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

In  Russia  there  are  millions  of  Germans  conversant 
with  the  language,  laws,  and  customs  of  the  people.  Many 
of  them  have  been  settled  there  for  generations.  They 
are  passionately  attached  to  their  race,  and  neither  un- 
friendly nor  useless  to  the  country  of  their  adoption.  The 
trade,  commerce,  and  industry  of  the  European  provinces 
are  largely  in  their  hands  and  in  those  of  their  forerunners 
and  helpers,  the  Jews.  The  Russo-German  and  Jewish 
middlemen  in  the  country  have  their  faces  ever  turned 
toward  the  Fatherland.  They  are  wont  to  buy  and  sell 
there.  They  always  obtained  their  credit  in  Berlin,  Dres- 
den, or  Frankfurt.  They  acted  as  commercial  travelers, 
agents,  brokers,  bankers,  for  Russians  and  Germans.  They 
are  constantly  going  and  coming  between  the  two  coun- 
tries. How  are  these  myriads  to  be  fettered  permanently 
and  kept  from  eking  out  a  livelihood  in  the  future  on  the 
lines  traced  by  necessity  or  interest  in  the  past?  The 
Russians,  on  their  side,  must  live,  and  therefore  buy  and 
sell.  Has  the  Conference  or  the  League  the  right  or  power 
to  dictate  to  them  the  persons  or  the  people  with  whom 
alone  they  may  have  dealings?  Can  it  narrow  the  field 
of  Russia's  political  activities  ?  Some  people  flatter  them- 
selves that  it  can.  In  this  case  the  League  of  Nations 
must  transform  itself  into  an  alliance  for  the  suppression 
of  the  German  race. 

Burning  indignation  and  moral  reprobation  were  the 
sentiments  aroused  among  the  high-minded  Allies  by  the 
infamous  Treaty  of  Brest-Litovsk.  For  that  mockery  of  a 
peace,  even  coming  from  an  enemy,  transcended  the 
bounds  of  human  vengeance.  It  was  justly  anathematized 
by  all  Entente  peoples  as  the  loathsome  creation  of  a 
frenzied  people.  But  shortly  afterward  the  Entente 
governments  themselves,  their  turn  having  come,  wrought 
what  Russians  of  all  parties  regard  as  a  political  patch- 
work of  variegated  injustice  more  odious  far,  because 

372 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD  RUSSIA 

its  authors  claimed  to  be  considered  as  the  devoted  friends 
of  their  victims  and  the  champions  of  right.  Whereas 
the  Brest-Litovsk  Treaty  provided  for  a  federative  Slav 
state,  with  provincial  diets  and  a  federal  parliament,  the 
system  substituted  by  the  Allies  consisted  in  carving  up 
Russia  into  an  ever-increasing  number  of  separate  states, 
some  of  which  cannot  live  by  themselves,  in  debarring 
the  inhabitants  from  a  voice  in  the  matter,  in  creating  a 
permanent  agency  for  foreign  intervention,  and  ignoring 
Russia's  right  to  reparation  from  the  common  enemy. 
The  Russians  were  not  asked  even  infonnally  to  say 
what  they  thought  or  felt  about  what  was  being  done. 
This  province  and  that  were  successively  lopped  off  in  a 
lordly  way  by  statesmen  who  aimed  at  being  classed  as 
impartial  dispensers  of  justice  and  sowers  of  the  seeds 
of  peace,  but  v/ere  unacquainted  with  the  conditions  and 
eschewed  investigation.  Here,  at  all  events,  the  usual 
symptoms  of  hesitancy  and  procrastination  were  absent. 
Swift  resolve  and  thoroughness  marked  the  disintegrating 
action  by  which  they  unwittingly  prepared  the  battle- 
fields of  the  future. 

Nobody  acquainted  with  Russian  psychology  imagines 
that  the  feelings  of  a  high-souled  people  can  be  transformed 
by  gifts  of  food,  money,  or  munitions  made  to  some  of 
their  fellow-countrymen.  How  little  likely  Russians  are 
to  barter  ideal  boons  for  material  advantages  may  be 
gathered  from  an  incident  worth  noting  that  occurred  in 
the  months  of  April  and  May,  when  the  fall  of  the  capital 
into  the  hands  of  the  anti-Bolshevists  was  confidently 
expected. 

At  that  time,  as  it  chanced,  the  one  thing  necessary 
for  their  success  against  Bolshevism  was  the  capture  of 
Petrograd.  If  that  city,  which,  despite  its  cosmopolitan 
character,  still  retained  its  importance  as  the  center  of 
political  Russia,   could  be  wrested  from  the  tenacious 

373 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

grasp  of  Lenin  and  Trotzky,  the  fall  of  the  anarchist 
dictators  was,  people  held,  a  foregone  conclusion.  The 
friends  of  Kolchak  accordingly  pressed  every  lever  to  set 
the  machinery  in  motion  for  the  march  against  Peter's 
city.  And  as,  of  all  helpers,  the  Finns  and  Esthonians 
were  admittedly  the  most  efficacious,  conversations 
were  begun  with  their  leaders.  They  were  ready  to 
drive  a  bargain,  but  it  must  be  a  hard  and  lucrative  one. 
They  would  march  on  Petrograd  for  a  price.  The  prin- 
cipal condition  which  they  laid  down  was  the  express 
and  definite  recognition  of  their  complete  independence 
within  frontiers  which  it  would  be  unfruitful  here  to  dis- 
cuss. The  Kolchak  government  was  ready  to  treat 
with  the  Finnish  Cabinet,  as  the  de  facto  government, 
and  to  recognize  Finland's  present  status  for  what  it  is 
in  international  law;  but  as  they  could  not  give  what 
they  did  not  possess,  their  recognition  must,  they  ex- 
plained, be  like  their  own  authority,  provisional.  A 
similar  reply  was  made  to  the  Esthonians;  to  this  those 
peoples  demurred.  The  Russians  stood  firm  and  the 
negotiations  fell  through.  It  is  to  be  supposed  that  when 
they  have  recovered  their  former  status  they  will  prove 
more  amenable  to  the  blandishments  of  the  Allies  than 
they  were  to  the  powerful  bribe  dangled  before  their  eyes 
by  the  Esthonians  and  the  Finns? 

But  if  the  improvised  arrangements  entailing  dismem- 
berment which  the  Great  Powers  imposed  on  Russia 
during  her  cataleptic  trance  are  revised,  as  they  may  be, 
whenever  she  recovers  consciousness  and  strength,  what 
course  will  events  then  follow?  If  she  seeks  to  regather 
imder  her  wing  some  of  the  peoples  whose  complete 
independence  the  League  of  Nations  was  so  eager  to 
guarantee,  will  that  body  respond  to  the  appeal  of  these 
and  fly  to  their  assistance?  Russia,  who  has  not  been 
consulted,  will  not  be  as  bound  by  the  canons  of  the 

374 


ATriTUDE  TOWARD  RUSSIA 

League,  and  one  need  not  be  a  prophet  to  foretell  the 
reluctance  of  Western  armies  to  wage  another  war  in 
order  to  prevent  territories,  of  which  some  of  the  pleni- 
potentiaries may  have  heard  as  little  as  of  Teschen, 
becoming  again  integral  parts  of  the  Slav  state.  Europe 
may  then  see  its  political  axis  once  more  shifted  and  its 
outlook  obscured.  Thus  the  system  of  equilibrium, 
which  was  theoretically  abolished  by  the  Fourteen  Points, 
may  be  re-established  by  the  hundred  and  one  economico- 
political  changes  which  Russia's  recovery  will  contribute 
to  bring  about. 

A  decade  is  but  a  twinkling  in  the  history  of  a  nation. 
Within  a  few  years  Russia  may  once  more  be  united. 
The  army  that  will  have  achieved  this  feat  will  con- 
stitute a  formidable  weapon  in  the  hands  of  the  state 
that  wields  it.  As  everything,  even  military  strength, 
is  relative,  and  as  the  armies  of  the  rest  of  Europe  will  not 
be  impatient  to  fight  in  the  East,  and  will  therefore  count 
for  considerably  less  than  their  numbers,  there  will  be  no 
real  danger  of  an  invasion.  Russia  is  a  country  easy  to  get 
into,  but  hard  to  get  out  of,  and  military  success  against 
its  armies  there  would  in  verity  be  a  victory  without  glory, 
annexation,  indemnities,  or  other  appreciable  gains. 

It  is  hard  to  believe  that  the  distinguished  statesmen 
of  the  Conference  took  these  eventualities  fully  into 
account  before  attempting  to  reshape  amorphous  Russia 
after  their  own  vague  ideal.  But  whether  we  assess  their 
work  by  the  standards  of  political  science  or  of  interna- 
tional ethics,  or  explain  it  as  a  series  of  well-meant 
expedients  begotten  by  the  practical  logic  of  momentary 
convenience,  we  must  confess  that  its  gifted  authors 
lacked  a  direct  eye  for  the  wayward  tides  of  national 
and  international  movements;  were,  in  fact,  smitten  by 
political  blindness,  and  did  the  best  they  could  in  these 
distressing  circumstances. 

375 


XI 

BOLSHEVISM 

WHAT  is  Bolshevism?  A  generic  term  that  stands 
for  a  number  of  things  which  have  Uttle  in  common. 
It  varies  with  the  countries  where  it  appears.  In  Russia 
it  is  the  despotism  of  an  organized  and  unscrupulous 
group  of  men  in  a  disorganized  community.  It  might  also 
be  termed  the  frenzy  of  a  few  epileptics  running  amuck 
among  a  multitude  of  paralytics.  It  is  not  so  much  a 
political  doctrine  or  a  socialist  theory  as  a  psychic  disease 
of  a  section  of  the  community  which  cannot  be  cured 
without  leaving  permanent  traces  and  perhaps  modifying 
certain  organic  functions  of  the  society  affected.  For 
some  students  at  a  distance  who  make  abstraction  from 
its  methods — as  a  critic  appreciating  the  performance  of 
"Hamlet"  might  make  abstraction  from  the  part  of  the 
Prince  of  Denmark — it  is  a  modification  of  the  theory  of 
Karl  Marx,  the  newest  contribution  to  latter-day  social 
science.  In  Russia,  at  any  rate,  the  general  condition  of 
society  from  which  it  sprang  was  characterized  not  by 
the  advance  of  social  science,  but  by  a  psychic  disorder  the 
germs  of  which,  after  a  century  of  incubation,  were  brought 
to  the  final  phase  of  development  by  the  war.  In  its 
origins  it  is  a  pathological  phenomenon. 

Four  and  a  half  years  of  an  unprecedented  campaign 
which  drained  to  exhaustion  the  financial  and  economic 
resources  of  the  European  belligerents  upset  the  psychical 
equilibrium  of  large  sections  of  their  populations.    Goaded 

376 


BOLSHEVISM 

by  hunger  and  disease  to  lawless  action,  and  no  longer 
held  back  by  legal  deterrents  or  moral  checks,  they  fol- 
lowed the  instinct  of  self-preservation  to  the  extent  of 
criminal  lawlessness.  Familiarity  with  death  and  suf- 
fering dispelled  the  fear  of  human  punishment,  while 
numbness  of  the  moral  sense  made  them  insensible  to  the 
less  immediate  restraints  of  a  religious  character.  These 
phenomena  are  not  unusual  concomitants  of  protracted 
wars.  History  records  numerous  examples  of  the  home- 
coming soldiery  turning  the  weapons  destined  for  the 
foreign  foe  against  political  parties  or  social  classes  in  their 
own  country.  In  other  European  communities  for  some 
time  previously  a  tendency  toward  root-reaching  and 
violent  change  was  perceptible,  but  as  the  state  retained 
its  hold  on  the  army  it  remained  a  tendency.  In  the 
case  of  Russia — the  country  where  the  state,  more  than 
ordinarily  artificial  and  ill-balanced,  was  correspondingly 
weak — Fate  had  interpolated  a  blood-stained  page  of 
red  and  white  terror  in  the  years  1906-08.  Although 
fitful,  unorganized,  and  abortive,  that  wild  splutter  was 
one  of  the  foretokens  of  the  impending  cataclysm,  and 
was  recognized  as  such  by  the  writer  of  these  pages. 
During  the  foregoing  quarter  of  a  century  he  had  watched 
with  interest  the  sowing  of  the  dragon's  teeth  from  which 
was  one  day  to  spring  up  a  race  of  armed  and  frenzied 
men.  Few  observers,  however,  even  in  the  Tsardom, 
gaged  the  strength  or  foresaw  the  effects  of  the  anarchist 
propaganda  which  was  being  carried  on  suasively  and 
perseveringly,  oftentimes  unwittingly,  in  the  nursery,  the 
school,  the  church,  the  university,  and  with  eminent 
success  in  the  army  and  the  navy.  Hence  the  widespread 
error  that  the  Russian  revolution  was  preceded  by  no 
such  era  of  preparation  as  that  of  the  encylopedists  in 
France. 

Recently,  however,  publicists  have  gone  to  the  other 

377 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

extreme  and  asserted  that  Dostoyevsky,  Tolstoy,  Gorky, 
and  a  host  of  other  Russian  writers  were  apostles  of  the 
tenets  which  have  since  received  the  name  of  Bolshevism, 
and  that  it  was  they  who  prepared  the  Russian  upheaval 
just  as  it  was  the  authors  of  the  "Encyclopedia"  who 
prepared  the  French  Revolution.  In  this  sweeping  form 
the  statement  is  misleading.  Russian  literature  during 
the  reigns  of  the  last  three  Tsars — with  few  exceptions, 
like  the  writings  of  Leskoff — was  unquestionably  a 
vehicle  for  the  spread  of  revolutionary  ideas.  But  it 
would  be  a  gross  exaggeration  to  assert  that  the  end 
deliberately  pursued  was  that  form  of  anarchy  which  is 
known  to-day  as  Bolshevism,  or,  indeed,  genuine  anarchy 
in  any  form.  Tolstoy  and  Gorky  may  be  counted  among 
the  forerunners  of  Bolshevism,  but  Dostoyevsky,  whom  I 
was  privileged  to  know,  was  one  of  its  keenest  antagonists. 
Nor  was  it  only  anarchism  that  he  combated.  Like 
Leskoff,  he  was  an  inveterate  enemy  of  political  radicalism, 
and  we  university  students  bore  him  a  grudge  in  con- 
sequence. In  his  masterly  delineation  ^  of  a  group  of 
"reformers,"  in  particular  of  Verkhovensky — whom 
psychic  tendency,  intellectual  anarchy,  and  political 
crime  bring  under  the  category  of  Bolshevists — he  fore- 
shadowed the  logical  conclusion,  and  likewise  the  political 
consummation,  of  the  corrosive  doctrines  which  in  those 
days  were  associated  with  the  name  of  Bakunin.  In  the 
year  1905-06,  when  the  upshot  of  the  conflict  between 
Tsarism  and  the  revolution  was  still  doubtful,  Count 
Witte  and  I  often  admired  the  marvelous  intuition  of  the 
great  novelist,  whose  gallery  of  portraits  in  the  "Devils" 
seemed  to  have  become  suddenly  endowed  with  life,  and 
to  be  conspiring,  shooting,  and  bomb-throwing  in  the 
streets  of  Moscow,  Petersburg,  Odessa,  and  Tiflis.  The 
seeds  of  social  revolution  sown  by  the  novelists,  essayists, 

*  In  the  Biessy  (Devils). 

378 


BOLSHEVISM 

and  professional  guides  of  the  nation  were  forced  by  the 
wars  of  1904  and  19 14  into  rapid  germination. 

As  far  back  as  the  year  1892,  in  a  work  published  over 
a  pseudonym,  the  present  writer  described  the  rotten 
condition  of  the  Tsardom,  and  ventured  to  foretell  its 
speedy  collapse.^  The  French  historian  Michelet  wrote 
with  intuition  marred  by  exaggeration  and  acerbity: 
"A  barbarous  force,  a  law-hating  world,  Russia  sucks 
and  absorbs  all  the  poison  of  Europe  and  then  gives  it 
off  in  greater  quantity  and  deadlier  intensity.  When 
we  admit  Russia,  we  admit  the  cholera,  dissolution, 
death.  That  is  the  meaning  of  Russian  propaganda. 
Yesterday  she  said  to  us,  'I  am  Christianity.'  To- 
morrow she  will  say,  'I  am  socialism.'  It  is  the  revolting 
idea  of  a  demagogy  without  an  idea,  a  principle,  a  senti- 
ment, of  a  people  which  would  march  toward  the  west 
with  the  gait  of  a  blind  man,  having  lost  its  soul  and  its 
will  and  killing  at  random,  of  a  terrible  automaton  like  a 
dead  body  which  can  still  reach  and  slay. 

/'It  might  commove  Europe  and  bespatter  it  with  blood, 
but  that  would  not  hinder  it  from  plunging  itself  into 
nothingness  in  the  abysmal  ooze  of  definite  dissolution." 

Russia,  then,  led  by  domiciled  aliens  without  a  father- 
land, may  be  truly  said  to  have  been  wending  steadily 
toward  the  revolutionary  vortex  long  before  the  outbreak 
of  hostilities.  Her  progress  was  continuous  and  percep- 
tible. As  far  back  as  the  year  1906  the  late  Count  Witte 
and  myself  made  a  guess  at  the  time-distance  which  the 
nation  still  had  to  traverse,  assuming  the  rate  of  progress 
to  be  constant,  before  reaching  the  abyss.  This,  however, 
was  mere  guesswork,  which  one  of  the  many  possibilities 
— ^and  in  especial  change  in  the  speed-rate — might  belie. 
In  effect,  events  moved  somewhat  more  quickly  than  we 

^  Russian  Characteristics,  by  E.  B.  Lanin  (Eblanin.  a  Russian  word 
which  me^ns  native  of  Dublin,  Eblana). 

379 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

anticipated,  and  it  was  the  World  War  and  its  appalling 
concomitants  that  precipitated  the  catastrophe. 

As  circumstances  willed  it,  certain  layers  of  the  people 
of  central  Europe  were  also  possessed  by  the  revolutionary 
spirit  at  the  close  of  the  World  War.  In  their  case  hunger, 
hardship,  disease,  and  moral  shock  were  the  avenues  along 
which  it  moved  and  reached  them.  This  coincidence  was 
fraught  with  results  more  impressive  than  serious.  The 
governments  of  both  these  great  peoples  had  long  been 
the  mainstays  of  monarchic  tradition,  military  discipline, 
and  the  principle  of  authority.  The  Teutons,  steadily 
pursuing  an  ideal  which  lay  at  the  opposite  pole  to  anar- 
chy, had  risked  every  worldly  and  well-nigh  every  spirit- 
ual possession  to  realize  it.  It  was  the  hegemony  of  the 
world.  This  aspiration  transfigured,  possessed,  fanati- 
cized  them.  Teutondom  became  to  them  what  Islam  is 
to  Mohammedans  of  every  race,  even  when  they  shake 
off  religion.  They  eschewed  no  means,  however  iniqui- 
tous, that  seemed  to  lead  to  the  goal.  They  ceased  to  be 
human  in  order  to  force  Europe  to  become  German. 
Offering  up  the  elementary  principles  of  morality  on  the 
altar  of  patriotism,  they  staked  their  all  upon  the  single 
venture  of  the  war.  It  was  as  the  throw  of  a  gambler 
playing  for  his  soul  with  the  Evil  One.  Yet  the  faith  of 
these  materialists  waxed  heroic  withal,  like  their  self- 
sacrifice.  And  in  the  fiery  ardor  of  their  enthusiasm,  hard 
concrete  facts  were  dissolved  and  set  floating  as  illusions 
in  the  ambient  mist.  Their  wishes  became  thoughts  and 
their  fears  were  dispelled  as  fancies.  They  beheld  only 
what  they  yearned  for,  and  when  at  last  they  dropped 
from  the  dizzy  height  of  their  castles  in  cloudland  their 
whole  world,  era,  and  ideal  was  shattered.  Unavailing 
remorse,  impotent  rage,  spiritual  and  intense  physical  ex- 
haustion completed  their  demoralization.  The  more  har- 
ried and  reckless  among  them  became  frenzied.     Turning 

380 


BOLSHEVISM 

first  against  their  rulers,  then  against  one  another,  they 
finally  started  upon  a  work  of  wanton  destruction  relieved 
by  no  creative  idea.  It  was  at  this  time-point  that  they 
endeavored  to  join  hands  with  their  tumultuous  Eastern 
neighbors,  and  that  the  one  word  "Bolshevism"  connoted 
the  revolutionary^  wave  that  vswept  over  some  of  the  Slav 
and  German  lands.  But  only  for  a  moment.  One  may 
safely  assert,  as  a  general  proposition,  that  the  same 
undertaking,  if  the  Germans  and  the  Russians  set  their 
hands  to  it,  becomes  forthwith  two  separate  enterprises, 
so  different  are  the  conceptions  and  methods  of  these  two 
peoples.  Bolshevism  was  almost  emptied  of  its  contents 
by  the  Germans,  and  little  left  of  it  but  the  empty  shell. 

Comparisons  between  the  orgasms  of  collective  madness 
which  accompanied  the  Russian  welter,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  French  Revolution,  on  the  other,  are  unfruitful 
and  often  misleading.  It  is  true  that  at  the  outset  those 
spasms  of  delirium  were  in  both  cases  violent  reactions 
against  abuses  grown  well-nigh  unbearable.  It  is  also  a 
fact  that  the  revolutionists  derived  their  preterhuman 
force  from  historic  events  which  had  either  denuded  those 
abuses  of  their  secular  protection  or  inspired  their  victims 
with  wonder-working  faith  in  their  power  to  sweep  them 
away.  But  after  this  initial  stage  the  likeness  vanishes. 
The  French  Revolution,  which  extinguished  feudalism  as 
a  system  and  the  nobility  as  a  privileged  class,  speedily 
ceased  to  be  a  mere  dissolvent.  In  its  latter  phases  it 
assumed  a  constructive  character.  Incidentally  it  created 
much  that  was  helpful  in  substance  if  not  beautiful  in 
form,  and  from  the  beginning  it  adopted  a  positive  doc- 
trine as  old  as  Christianity,  but  new  in  its  application  to 
the  political  sphere.  Thus,  although  it  uprooted  quanti- 
ties of  wheat  together  with  the  tares,  its  general  effect  was 
to  prepare  the  ground  for  a  new  harvest.  It  had  a  dis- 
tinctly social  purpose,  which  it  partially  realized.     Nor 

3S1 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

should  it  be  forgotten  that  in  the  psychological  sphere  it 
kindled  a  transient  outburst  of  quasi-religious  enthusiasm 
among  its  partizans,  imbued  them  with  apostolic  zeal,  in- 
spired them  with  a  marvelous  spirit  of  self-abnegation, 
and  nerved  their  arms  to  far-resonant  exploits.  And  the 
forces  which  the  revolution  thus  set  free  changed  many  of 
the  forms  of  the  European  world,  but  without  reshaping 
it  after  the  image  of  the  ideal. 

Has  the  withering  blight  known  as  Bolshevism  any  such 
redeeming  traits  to  its  credit  account  ?  The  consensus  of 
opinion  down  to  the  present  moment  gives  an  emphatic, 
if  summary,  answer  in  the  negative.  Every  region  over 
which  it  swept  is  blocked  with  heaps  of  unsightly  ruins. 
It  has  depreciated  all  moral  values.  It  passed  like  a  tor- 
nado, spending  its  energies  in  demolition.  Of  construc- 
tion hardly  a  trace  has  been  discerned,  even  by  indulgent 
explorers.^  One  might  liken  it  to  a  so-called  possession 
by  the  spirit  of  evil,  wont  of  yore  to  use  the  human  organs 
as  his  own  for  words  of  folly  and  deeds  of  iniquity.  Bol- 
shevism has  operated  uniformly  as  a  quick  solvent  of  the 
social  organism.  Doubtless  European  society  in  191 7 
sorely  needed  purging  by  drastic  means,  but  only  a  fanatic 
would  say  that  it  deserved  annihilation. 

It  has  been  variously  affirmed  that  the  political  leaven 
of  these  destructive  ferments  in  eastern  and  central  Eu- 
rope was  wholesome.  Slavs  and  Germans,  it  is  argued, 
stung  by  the  bankruptcy  of  their  political  systems,  re- 
solved to  alter  them  on  the  lines  of  universal  suffrage  and 
its  corollaries,  but  were  carried  farther  than  they  meant 
to  go.     This  mild  judgment  is  based  on  a  very  partial 


'  Eaucational  reforms  have  been  mentioned  among  its  achievements  and 
attributed  to  Lunatcharsky.  That  he  exerted  himself  to  spread  elementary 
instruction  must  be  admitted.  But  this  progress  and  the  effective  protec- 
tion and  encouragement  which  he  has  undoubtedly  extended  to  arts  and 
sciences  would  seem  to  exhaust  the  list  of  items  in  the  credit  account  of  the 
Bolshevist  regime. 

382 


BOLSHEVISM 

survey  of  the  phenomena.  The  improvement  In  question 
was  tlie  work,  not  of  the  Bolshevists,  but  of  their  adver- 
saries, the  moderate  reformers.  And  the  poHtical  striv- 
ings of  these  had  no  organic  nexus  with  the  doctrine  which 
emanated  from  the  nethermost  depths  in  which  vengeful 
pariahs,  outlaws,  and  benighted  nihilists  were  floundering 
before  suffocating  in  the  ooze  of  anarchism.  Neither  can 
one  discern  any  degree  of  kinship  between  Spartacists  like 
Eichhom  or  Lenin  and  moderate  reformers  as  represented, 
say,  by  Theodor  Wolff  and  Boris  vSavinkoff.  The  two 
pairs  are  sundered  from  each  other  by  the  distance  that 
separates  the  social  and  the  anti-social  instinct.  Those 
are  vulgar  iconoclasts,  these  are  would-be  world-builders. 
That  the  Russian,  or,  indeed,  the  German  constitu- 
tional reformers  should  have  hugged  the  delusion  that 
while  thrones  were  being  hurled  to  the  ground,  and  an 
epoch  was  passing  away  in  violent  convulsions,  a  few 
alterations  in  the  electoral  law  would  restore  order  and 
bring  back  normal  conditions  to  the  agonizing  nations,  is 
an  instructive  illustration  of  the  blurred  vision  which  char- 
acterizes contemporary  statesmen.  The  Anglo-Saxon  del- 
egates at  the  Conference  were  under  a  similar  delusion 
when  they  undertook  to  regenerate  the  world  by  a  series 
of  merely  political  changes. 

No  one  who  has  followed  attentively  the  work  of  the 
constitution-makers  in  Weimar  can  have  overlooked 
their  readiness  to  adopt  and  assimilate  the  positive  ele- 
ments of  a  movement  which  was  essentially  destructive. 
In  this  respect  they  displayed  a  remarkable  degree  of  open- 
mindedness  and  receptivity.  They  showed  themselves 
avid  of  every  contribution  which  they  could  glean  from 
any  source  to  the  work  of  national  reorganization,  and 
even  in  Teutonized  Bolshevism  they  apparently  found 
helpful  hints  of  timely  innovations.  One  may  safely 
hazard  the  prediction  that  these  adaptations,  however, 

383 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

little  they  may  be  relished,  are  certain  to  spread  to 
the  Western  peoples,  who  will  be  constrained  to  accept 
them  in  the  long  run,  and  Germany  may  end  by  becoming 
the  economic  leader  of  democratic  Europe.  The  law  oi 
politico-social  interchange  and  assimilation  underlying 
this  phenomenon,  had  it  been  understood  by  the  states- 
men of  the  Entente,  might  have  rendered  them  less 
desirous  of  seeing  the  German  organism  tainted  with  the 
germs  of  dissolution.  For  what  Germany  borrows  from 
Bolshevism  to-day  western  Europe  will  borrow  from 
Germany  to-morrow.  And  foremost  among  the  new 
institutions  which  the  revolution  will  impose  upon 
Europe  is  that  of  the  Soviets,  considerably  modified  in 
form  and  limited  in  functions. 

"In  the  conception  of  the  Soviet  system,"  writes  the 
most  influential  Jewish-German  organ  in  Europe,  "there 
is  assuredly  something  serviceable,  and  it  behooves  us  to 
familiarize  ourselves  therewith.  Psychologically,  it  rests 
upon  the  need  felt  by  the  working-man  to  be  something 
more  than  a  mere  cog  in  the  industrial  mechanism.  The 
first  step  would  consist  in  conferring  upon  labor  com- 
mittees juridical  functions  consonant  with  latter-day 
requirements.  These  functions  would  extend  beyond 
those  exercised  by  the  labor  committees  hitherto.  How 
far  they  could  go  without  rendering  the  industrial  enter- 
prise impossible  is  a  matter  for  investigation.  .  .  .  This 
is  not  merely  a  wish  of  the  extremists ;  it  is  a  psychologi- 
cal requirement,  and  therefore  it  necessitates  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  closer  neX'US  between  legislation  and  practi- 
cal life  which  unhappily  is  become  so  complicated.  And 
this  need  is  not  confined  to  the  laboring  class.  It  is 
universal.  Therefore,  what  is  good  for  the  one  is  meet 
for  the  other."  ^ 

The  Soviet  system  adapted  to  modern  existence  is  one 

1  Frankfurter  Zeitung,  February  28,  1919. 

381 


BOLSHEVISM 

— and  probably  the  sole — legacy  of  Bolshevism  to  the 
new  age. 

During  the  Peace  Conference  Bolshevism  played  a 
large  part  in  the  world's  affairs.  By  some  of  the  eminent 
lawgivers  there  it  was  feared  as  a  scourge;  by  others  it 
was  wielded  as  a  weapon,  and  by  a  third  set  it  was  em- 
ployed as  a  threat.  Whenever  a  delegate  of  one  of  the 
lesser  states  felt  that  he  was  losing  ground  at  the  Peace 
Table,  and  that  his  country's  demands  were  about  to  be 
whittled  down  as  extravagant,  he  would  point  significantly 
to  certain  "foretokens"  of  an  outbreak  of  Bolshevism 
in  his  country  and  class  them  as  an  inevitable  consequence 
of  the  nation's  disappointment.  Thus  the  representative 
of  nearly  every  state  which  had  a  territorial  program 
declared  that  that  program  must  be  carried  out  if  Bol- 
shevism was  to  be  averted  there.  "This  or  else  Bol- 
shevism" was  the  peroration  of  many  a  delegate's  expose. 
More  redoubtable  than  political  discontent  was  the  prose- 
lytizing activity  of  the  leaders  of  the  movement  in  Russia. 

Of  the  two  pillars  of  Bolshevism  one  is  a  Russian,  the 
other  a  Jew,  the  former,  UHanoff  (better  known  as  Lenin), 
the  brain;  the  other,  Braunstein  (called  Trotzky),  the 
arm.  of  the  sect.  Trotzky  is  an  unscrupulous  despot,  in 
whose  veins  flows  the  poison  of  malignity.  His  element 
is  cruelty,  his  special  gift  is  organizing  capacity.  Lenin 
is  a  Utopian,  whose  fanaticism,  although  extensive,  has 
well-defined  limits.  In  certain  things  he  disagrees  pro- 
foundly with  Trotzky.  He  resembles  a  religious  preacher 
in  this,  that  he  created  a  body  of  veritable  disciples  around 
himself.  He  might  be  lil^ened  to  a  pope  with  a  college 
of  international  cardinals.  Thus  he  has  French,  British, 
German,  Austrian,  Czech,  Italian,  Danish,  Swedish, 
Japanese,  Hindu,  Chinese,  Buryat,  and  many  other  fol- 
lowers, who  are  chiefs  of  proselytizing  sections  charged 
with  the  work  of  spreading  the  Bolshevik  evangel  through- 

385 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

out  the  globe,  and  are  working  hard  to  discharge  their 
duties.  Lenin,  however,  dissatisfied  with  the  measures 
of  success  ah-eady  attained,  is  constantly  stimulating 
his  disciples  to  more  strenuous  exertions.  He  shares 
•with,  other  sectarian  chiefs  who  have  played  a  prominent 
part  in  the  world's  history  that  indefinable  quality  which 
stirs  emotional  susceptibility  and  renders  those  who 
approach  him  more  easily  accessible  to  ideas  toward 
which  they  began  by  manifesting  repugnance.  Lenin 
is  credibly  reported  to  have  made  several  converts  among 
his  Western  opponents. 

The  plenipotentiaries,  during  the  first  four  months, 
approached  Bolshevism  from  a  single  direction,  unvaried 
by  the  events  which  it  generated  or  the  modifications 
which  it  underwent.  They  tested  it  solely  by  its  acci- 
dental bearings  on  the  one  aim  which  they  were  intent  on 
securing — a  formal  and  provisional  resettlement  of  Europe 
capable  of  being  presented  to  their  respective  parliaments 
as  a  fair  achievement.  With  its  real  character,  its  mani- 
fold corollaries,  its  innovating  tendencies  over  the  social, 
political,  and  ethnical  domain,  they  were  for  the  time 
being  unconcerned.  Without  the  slightest  reference  to 
any  of  these  considerations  they  were  ready  to  find  a 
place  for  it  in  the  new  state  system  with  which  they 
hoped  to  endow  the  world.  More  than  once  they  were  on 
the  point  of  giving  it  official  recognition.  There  was  no 
preliminary  testing,  sifting,  or  examining  by  these  empiri- 
cists, who,  finding  Bolshevism  on  their  way,  and  dis- 
cerning no  facile  means  of  dislodging  or  transforming  it, 
vsignified  their  willingness  under  easy  conditions  to  hall- 
mark and  incorporate  it  as  one  of  the  elements  of  the  new 
ordering.  From  the  crimes  laid  to  its  charge  they  were 
prepared  to  make  abstraction.  The  barbarous  methods 
to  which  it  owed  its  very  existence  they  were  willing  to 
consign  to  oblivion.     And  it  was  only  a  freak  of  circum- 

386 


BOLSHEVISM 

stance  that  hindered  this  embodiment  of  despotism  from 
beginning:  one  of  their  accepted  means  of  rendering  the 
world  safe  for  democracy. 

PoHtical  students  outside  the  Conference,  going  farther 
into  the  matter,  inquired  whether  there  was  any  kernel 
of  truth  in  the  doctrines  of  Lenin,  any  social  or  political 
advantage  in  the  practices  of  Braunstein  (Trotzky),  and 
the  conclusions  which  they  reached  were  negative.^  But 
inquiries  of  this  theoretical  nature  awakened  no  interest 
among  the  empiricists  of  the  Supreme  Council.  For 
them  Bolshevism  meant  nothing  more  than  a  group  of 
politicians,  who  directed,  or  misdirected,  but  certainly 
represented  the  bulk  of  the  Russian  people,  and  who,  if 
won  over  and  gathered  under  the  cloak  of  the  Conference, 
would  facilitate  its  task  and  bear  witness  to  its  triumph. 
This  inference,  drawn  by  keen  observers  from  many 
countries  and  parties,  is  borne  out  by  the  curious  admis- 
sions and  abortive  acts  of  the  principal  plenipotentiaries 
themselves. 

In  its  milder  manifestations  on  the  social  side  Russian 
Bolshevism  resembles  communism,  and  may  be  described 
as  a  social  revolution  effected  by  depriving  one  set  of 
people — the  ruling  and  intelligent  class — of  power,  prop- 
erty, and  civil  rights,  putting  another  and  less  qualified 
section  in  their  place,  and  maintaining  the  top-heavy 
structure  by  force  ruthlessly  employed.  Far-reaching 
though  this  change  undoubtedly  is,  it  has  no  nexus  with 
Marxism  or  kindred  theories.  Its  proximate  causes  were 
many:  such,  for  example,  as  the  breakdown  of  a  tyran- 
nical system  of  government,  state  indebtedness  so  vast 
that  it  swallowed  up  private  capital,  the  depreciation  of 
money,  and  the  corresponding  appreciation  of  labor.     It 


'  A'succinct  but  interesting  study  of  this  question  appeared  in  the  Han- 
dels-Zeitung  of  the  Berliner  Tageblatt,  over  the  signature  of  Dr.  Felix 
Pinner,  July  20,  191 8. 

26  387 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

is  fair,  therefore,  to  say  that  a  rise  in  the  cost  of  produc- 
tion and  the  temporary  substitution  of  one  class  for 
another  mark  the  extent  to  which  poHtical  forces  revolu- 
tionized the  social  fabric.  Beyond  these  limits  they  did 
not  go.  The  notion  had  been  widespread  in  most  coun- 
tries, and  deep-rooted  in  Russia,  that  a  political  upheaval 
would  effect  a  root-reaching  and  lasting  alteration  in  the 
forces  of  social  development.  It  was  adopted  by  Lenin, 
a  fanatic  of  the  Robespierre  type,  but  far  superior  to 
Robespierre  in  will-power,  insight,  resourcefulness,  and 
sincerity,  who,  having  seized  the  reins  of  power,  made  the 
experiment. 

It  is  no  easy  matter  to  analyze  Lenin's  economic  policy, 
because  of  the  veil  of  mist  that  conceals  so  much  of  Rus- 
sian contemporary  history.  Our  sources  are  confined  to 
the  untrustworthy  statements  of  a  censored  press  and 
travelers'  tales. 

But  it  is  common  knowledge  that  the  Bolshevist  dic- 
tator requisitioned  and  "nationalized" 'the  banks,  took 
factories,  workshops,  and  plants  from  their  owners  and 
handed  them  over  to  the  workmen,  deprived  landed  pro- 
prietors of  their  estates,  and  allowed  peasants  to  appro- 
priate them.  It  is  in  the  matter  of  industry,  however, 
that  his  experiment  is  most  interesting  as  showing  the 
practical  value  of  Marxism  as  a  policy  and  the  ability 
of  the  Bolsheviki  to  deal  with  delicate  social  problem.s. 
The  historic  decree  issued  by  the  Moscow  government  on 
the  nationalization  of  industry  after  the  opening  experi- 
ment had  broken  down  contains  data  enough  to  enable 
one  to  affirm  that  Lenin  himself  judged  Marxism  inap- 
plicable even  to  Russia,  and  left  it  where  he  had  found  it 
— among  the  ideals  of  a  millennial  future.  That  ukase 
ordered  the  gradual  nationalization  of  all  private  indus- 
tries with  a  capital  of  not  less  than  one  million  rubles, 
but  allowed  the  owners  to  enjoy  the  gratuitous  usufruct 

388 


BOLSHEVISM 

of  the  concern,  provided  that  they  financed  and  carried 
it  on  as  before.  Consequently,  ahhough  in  theory  the 
business  was  transferred  to  the  state,  in  reahty  the 
capitaHst  retained  his  place  and  his  profits  as  under  the 
old  system.  Consequently,  the  principal  aims  of  so- 
cialism, which  are  the  distribution  of  the  proceeds  of 
industry  among  the  community  and  the  retention  of  a 
certain  surplus  by  the  state,  were  missed.  In  the  Bolshe- 
vist procedure  the  state  is  wholly  eliminated  except  for 
the  purpose  of  upholding  a  fiction.  It  receives  nothing 
from  the  capitalist,  not  even  a  royalty. 

The  Slav  is  a  dreamer  whose  sense  of  the  real  is 
often  defective.  He  loses  himself  in  vague  general- 
ities and  pithless  abstractions.  Thus,  before  opening 
a  school  he  will  spin  out  a  theory  of  universal  edu- 
cation, and  then  bemoan  his  lack  of  resources  to  real- 
ize it.  True,  many  of  the  chiefs  of  the  sect  —  for  it 
is  undoubtedly  a  sect  when  it  is  not  a  criminal  con- 
spiracy, and  very  often  it  is  both  —  were  not  Slavs, 
but  Jews,  who,  for  the  behoof  of  their  kindred,  dropped 
their  Semitic  names  and  adopted  sonorous  Slav  substi- 
tutes. But  they  were  most  unscrupulous  peculators,  in- 
capable of  taldng  an  interest  in  the  scientific  aspect  of 
such  matters,  and  hypnotized  by  the  dreams  of  lucre  which 
the  opportunity  evoked.  One  has  only  to  call  to  mind 
some  of  the  shabby  transactions  in  which  the  Semitic 
Dictator  of  Hungar>%  Kuhn,  or  Cohen,  and  Braunstein 
(Trotzky)  of  Petrograd,  took  an  active  part.  The  former 
is  said  to  have  offered  for  sale  the  historic  crown  of 
St.  Stephen  of  Hungary — which  to  him  was  but  a  plain 
gold  headgear  adorned  with  precious  stones  and  a  jeweled 
cross — to  an  old  curiosity  dealer  of  Munich,^  and  when 
solemnly  protesting  that  he  was  living  only  for  the  Soviet 

'  Cf.  Bonsoir,  July  29,  1919.  The  price  was  not  fixed,  but  the  minimum 
was  specified.     It  was  one  hundred  thousand  kronen. 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

Republic  and  was  ready  to  die  for  it,  he  was  actively  en- 
gaged in  smuggling  out  of  Hungary  into  Switzerland  fifty 
million  kronen  bonds,  thirty-five  kilograms  of  gold,  and 
thirty  chests  filled  with  objects  of  value. ^  His  colleague 
Szamuelly's  plunder  is  a  matter  of  history. 

To  such  adventurers  as  those  science  is  a  drug.  They 
are  primitive  beings  impressible  mainly  to  concrete  mo- 
tives of  the  barest  kind.  The  dupes  of  Lenin  were  people 
of  a  different  type.  Many  of  them  fancied  that  the  great 
political  clash  must  inevitably  result  in  an  equally  great 
and  salutary  social  upheaval.  This  assumption  has  not 
been  borne  out  by  events. 

Those  fanatics  fell  into  another  error;  they  were  in  a 
hurry,  and  would  fain  have  effected  their  great  transforma- 
tion as  by  the  waving  of  a  magician's  wand.  Impatient 
of  gradation,  they  scorned  to  traverse  the  distance  be- 
tween the  point  of  departure  and  that  of  the  goal,  and  by 
way  of  setting  up  the  new  social  structure  without  delay, 
they  rolled  away  all  hindrances  regardless  of  consequences. 
In  this  spirit  of  absolutism  they  abolished  the  services 
of  the  national  debt,  struck  out  the  claims  of  Russia's 
creditors  to  their  capital  or  interest,  and  turned  the  shops 
and  factories  over  to  labor  boards.  That  was  the  initial 
blunder  which  the  ukase  alluded  to  was  subsequently 
issued  to  rectify.  But  it  was  too  late.  The  equilibrium 
of  the  forces  of  production  had  been  definitely  upset  and 
could  no  longer  be  righted. 

One  of  the  basic  postulates  of  profitable  production  is 
the  equilibrium  of  all  its  essential  factors — such  as  the 
laborer's  wages,  the  cost  of  the  machinery  and  the  mate- 
rial, the  administration.  Bring  discord  into  the  harmony 
and  the  entire  mechanism  is  out  of  gear. 

The  Russian  workman,  who  is  at  bottom  an  illiterate 
peasant  with  the  old  roots  of  serfdom  still  clinging  to  him, 

'■  CI.  Der  Tag,  Vienna,  August  13, 1919.    L'Echo  de  Paris,  August  15, 1919. 

390 


BOLSHEVISM 

has  seldom  any  bowels  for  his  neighbor  and  none  at  all  for 
his  employer.  "God  Himself  commands  us  to  despoil 
such  gentry,"  is  one  of  his  sayings.  He  is  in  a  hurry  to 
enrich  himself,  and  he  cares  about  nothing  else.  Nor  can 
he  realize  that  to  beggar  his  neighbors  is  to  impoverish 
himself.  Hence  he  always  takes  and  never  gives;  as  a 
peasant  he  destroys  the  forests,  hewing  trees  and  planting 
none,  and  robs  the  soil  of  its  fertility.  On  analogous  lines 
he  would  fain  deal  with  the  factories,  exacting  exorbitant 
wages  that  eat  up  all  profit,  and  naively  expecting  the 
owner  to  go  on  paying  them  as  though  he  were  the  trustee 
of  a  fund  for  enriching  the  greedy.  The  only  people  to 
profit  by  the  system,  and  even  they  only  transiently,  were 
the  manual  laborers.  The  bulk  of  the  skilled,  intelHgent, 
and  educated  artisans  were  held  up  to  contempt  and  ostra- 
cized, or  killed  as  an  odious  aristocracy.  That,  it  has 
been  aptly  pointed  out,^  is  far  removed  from  Marxism. 
The  Marxist  doctrine  postulates  the  adhesion  of  intelli- 
gent workers  to  the  social  revolution,  whereas  the  Russian 
experiinenters  placed  them  in  the  same  category  as  the 
capitalists,  the  aristocrats,  and  treated  them  accordingly. 
Another  Marxist  postulate  not  realized  in  Russia  was  that 
before  the  state  could  profitably  proceed  to  nationaliza- 
tion the  country  must  have  been  in  possession  of  a  well- 
organized,  smooth-running  industrial  mechanism.  And 
this  was  possible  only  in  those  lands  in  which  capitalism 
had  had  a  long  and  successful  innings,  not  in  the  great 
Slav  country  of  husbandmen. 

By  way  of  glozing  over  these  incongruities  Lenin's  ukase 
proclaimed  that  the  measures  enacted  were  only  provi- 
sional, and  aimed  at  enabling  Russia  to  realize  the  great 
transformation  by  degrees.  But  the  impression  conveyed 
by  the  history  of  the  social  side  of  Lenin's  activity  is  that 
Marxism,  w^hether  as  understood  by  its  author  or  as  inter- 

^  By  Dr.  F.  Piimer,  H.  Vorst,  and  others. 

391 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

preted  and  twisted  by  its  Russian  adherents,  has  been 
tried  and  found  impracticable.  One  is  further  warranted 
in  saying  that  neither  the  visionary  workers  who  are  moved 
by  misdirected  zeal  for  social  improvement  nor  the  theo- 
rists who  are  constantly  on  the  lookout  for  new  and 
stimulating  ideas  are  likely  to  discover  in  Russian  Bolshe- 
vism any  aspect  but  the  one  alluded  to  above  worthy 
of  their  serious  consideration, 

A  much  deeper  mark  was  made  on  the  history  of  the 
century  by  its  methods. 

Compared  with  the  soul-searing  horrors  let  loose  during 
the  Bolshevist  fit  of  frenzy,  the  worst  atrocities  recorded 
of  Deputy  Carrier  and  his  noyades  during  the  French 
Revolution  were  but  the  freaks  of  compassionate  human 
beings.  In  Bolshevist  Russia  brutality  assumed  forms 
so  monstrous  that  the  modern  man  of  the  West  shrinks 
from  conjuring  up  a  faint  picture  of  them  in  imagination. 
Tens,  perhaps  hundreds,  of  thousands  were  done  to  death 
in  hellish  ways  by  the  orders  of  men  and  of  women. 
Eyes  were  gouged  out,  ears  hacked  off,  arms  and  legs  torn 
from  the  body  in  presence  of  the  victims'  children  or  wives, 
whose  agony  was  thus  begun  before  their  own  turn  came. 
Men  and  women  and  infants  were  burned  alive.  Chinese 
executioners  were  specially  hired  to  inflict  the  awful  tort- 
ure of  the  "thousand  sHces."  ^  Officers  had  their  limbs 
broken  and  were  left  for  hours  in  agonies.  Many  victims 
are  credibly  reported  to  have  been  buried  alive.  History, 
from  its  earliest  dawn  down  to  the  present  day,  has  re- 
corded nothing  so  profoundly  revolting  as  the  nameless 

1  The  condemned  man  is  tied  to  a  post  or  a  cross,  his  mouth  gagged,  and 
the  execution  is  made  to  last  several  hours.  It  usually  begins  with  a  slit 
on  the  forehead  and  the  pulling  down  of  the  skin  toward  the  chin.  After 
the  lapse  of  a  certain  time  the  nose  is  severed  from  the  face.  An  interval 
follows,  then  an  car  is  lopped  off,  and  so  the  devilish  work  goes  on  ^vith 
long  pauses.  The  skill  of  the  executioner  is  displayed  in  the  length  of  time 
during  which  the  victim  remains  conscious. 

392 


BOLSHEVISM 

cruelties  in  which  these  human  fiends  reveled.  One  grue- 
some picture  of  the  less  loathsome  scenes  enacted  will  live 
in  history  on  a  level  with  the  noyades  of  Nantes.  I  have 
seen  several  moving  descriptions  of  it  in  Russian  journals. 
The  following  account  is  from  the  pen  of  a  French  marine 
officer : 

"We  have  two  armed  cruisers  outside  Odessa.  A  few 
weeks  ago  one  of  them,  having  an  investigation  to  make, 
sent  a  diver  down  to  the  bottom.  A  few  minutes  passed 
and  the  alarm  signal  was  heard.  He  was  hauled  up  and 
quickly  relieved  of  his  accoutrements.  He  had  fainted 
awa3^  When  he  came  to,  his  teeth  were  chattering  and 
the  only  articulate  sounds  that  could  be  got  from  him  were 
the  words:  'It  is  horrible!  It  is  awful!'  A  second  diver 
was  then  lowered,  with  the  same  procedure  and  a  like  re- 
sult. Finally  a  third  was  chosen,  this  time  a  sturdy  lad 
of  iron  nerves,  and  sent  down  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea. 
After  the  lapse  of  a  few  minutes  the  same  thing  happened 
as  before,  and  the  man  was  brought  up.  This  time,  how- 
ever, there  was  no  fainting  fit  to  record.  On  the  contrary, 
although  pale  with  terror,  he  Vv^as  able  to  state  that  he 
had  beheld  the  sea-bed  peopled  with  human  bodies  stand- 
ing upright,  which  the  swaying  of  the  water,  still  sensible 
at  this  shallow  depth,  softly  rocked  as  though  they  were 
monstrous  alga?,  their  hair  on  end  bristling  vertically,  and 
their  arms  raised  toward  the  surface.  .  .  .  All  these  corpses, 
anchored  to  the  bottom  by  the  weight  of  stones,  took  on 
an  appearance  of  eerie  life  resembling,  one  might  say,  a 
forest  of  trees  moved  from  side  to  side  by  the  wind  and 
eager  to  welcome  the  diver  come  down  among  them.  .  .  . 
There  were,  he  added,  old  men,  children  numerous  be- 
yond count,  so  that  one  could  but  compare  them  to  the 
trees  of  a  forest."  ^ 

From  published  records  it  is  known  that  the  Bolshevist 

^  Cf.  Le  Figaro,  February  i8,  1919. 

393 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

thugs,  when  tired  of  using  the  rifle,  the  machine-gun,  the 
cord,  and  the  bayonet,  expedited  matters  by  drowning 
their  victims  by  hundreds  in  the  Black  Sea,  in  the  Gulf  of 
Finland,  and  in  the  great  rivers.  Submarine  cemeteries 
was  the  name  given  to  these  last  resting-places  of  some  of 
Russia's  most  high-minded  sons  and  daughters.^  It  is 
not  in  the  French  Revolution  that  those  deeds  of  wanton 
destruction  and  revolting  cruelty  which  are  indissolubly 
associated  with  Bolshevism  find  a  parallel,  but  in  Chinese 
history,  which  offers  a  striking  and  curious  prefiguration 
of  the  Leninist  structure.  ^  Toward  the  middle  of  the 
tenth  century,  when  the  empire  was  plunged  in  dire  con- 
fusion, a  mystical  sect  was  formed  there  for  the  purpose 
of  destroying  by  force  every  vestige  of  the  traditional 
social  fabric,  and  establishing  a  system  of  complete 
equality  without  any  state  organization  whatever,  after 
the  manner  advocated  by  Leo  Tolstoy.  Some  of  the  dicta 
of  these  sectarians  have  a  decidedly  Bolshevist  flavor. 
This,  for  example:  "Society  rests  upon  law,  property, 
religion,  and  force.  But  law  is  injustice  and  chicane; 
property  is  robbery  and  extortion;  religion  is  untruth, 
and  force  is  iniquity."  In  those  days  Chinese  political 
parties  were  at  strife  with  each  other,  and  none  of  them 
scorned  any  means,  however  brutal,  to  worst  its  adver- 
saries, but  for  a  long  while  they  were  divided  among  them- 
selves and  without  a  capable  chief. 

At  last  the  Socialist  party  unexpectedly  produced  a 
leader,  Wang  Ngan  Shen,  a  man  of  parts,  who  possessed 
the  gift  of  drawing  and  swaying  the  multitude     Of  agree- 


1 1  do  not  suggest  that  these  crimes  were  ordered  by  Lenin.  But  it  will 
not  be  gainsaid  that  neither  he  nor  his  colleagues  punished  the  mass  mur- 
derers or  even  protested  against  their  crimes.  Neither  can  it  be  main- 
tained that  massacres  were  confined  to  any  one  party. 

2  This  pre-Bolshevist  movement  is  described  in  an  interesting  study  on 
the  socialist  movement  and  systems,  down  to  the  year  1848,  by  El.  Luzatto. 
Cf.  Der  Bund,  August  16,  191 8. 

394 


BOLSHEVISM 

able  presence,  he  was  resourceful  and  unscrupulous,  soon 
became  popular,  and  even  captivated  the  Emperor, 
Shen  Tsung,  who  appointed  him  Minister.  He  then  set 
about  applying  his  tenets  and  realizing  his  dreams. 
Wang  Ngan  Shen  began  by  making  commerce  and  trade 
a  state  monopoly,  just  as  Lenin  had  done,  "in  order," 
he  explained,  "to  keep  the  poor  from  being  devoured  by 
the  rich."  The  state  was  proclaimed  the  sole  owner  of 
all  the  wealth  of  the  soil;  agricultural  overseers  were 
despatched  to  each  district  to  distribute  the  land  among 
the  peasants,  each  of  these  receiving  as  much  as  he  and 
his  family  could  cultivate.  The  peasant  obtained  also 
the  seed,  but  this  he  was  obliged  to  return  to  the  state 
after  the  ingathering  of  the  harvest.  The  power  of  the 
overseer  went  farther;  it  was  he  who  determined  what 
crops  the  husbandman  might  sow  and  who  fixed  day  by 
day  the  price  of  every  salable  commodity  in  the  district. 
As  the  state  reserved  to  itself  the  right  to  buy  all  agri- 
cultural produce,  it  was  bound  in  return  to  save  up  a 
part  of  the  profits  to  be  used  for  the  benefit  of  the  people 
in  years  of  scarcity,  and  also  at  other  times  to  be  employed 
in  works  needed  by  the  community.  Wang  Ngan  Shen 
also  ordained  that  only  the  wealthy  should  pay  taxes, 
the  proceeds  of  which  were  to  be  employed  in  relieving 
the  wants  of  the  poor,  the  old,  and  the  unemployed. 
The  theory  was  smooth  and  attractive. 

For  over  thirty  years  those  laws  are  said  to  have 
remained  in  force,  at  any  rate  on  paper.  To  what  extent 
they  were  carried  out  is  problematical.  Probably  a  be- 
ginning was  actually  made,  for  during  Wang's  tenure  of 
office  confusion  was  worse  confounded  than  before,  and 
misery  more  intense  and  widespread.  The  opposition 
to  his  regime  increased,  spread,  and  finally  got  the  upper 
hand.  Wang  Ngan  Shen  was  banished,  together  with 
those  of  his  partizans  who  refused  to  accept  the  return  to 

395 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

the  old  system.  Such  would  appear  to  have  been  the 
first  appearance  of  Bolshevism  recorded  in  history. 

Another  less  complete  parallel,  not  to  the  Bolshevist 
theory,  but  to  the  plight  of  the  country  which  it  ruined , 
may  be  found  in  the  Chinese  rebellion  organized  in  the  year 
1850  by  a  peasant^  who,  having  become  a  Christian, 
fancied  himself  called  by  God  to  regenerate  his  people. 
He  accordingly  got  together  a  band  of  stout-hearted 
fellows  whom  he  fanaticized,  disciplined,  and  transformed 
into  the  nucleus  of  a  strong  army  to  which  brigands, 
outlaws,  and  malcontents  of  every  social  layer  afterward 
flocked.  They  overran  the  Yangtse  Valley,  invaded 
twelve  of  the  richest  provinces,  seized  six  hundred  cities 
and  towns,  and  put  an  end  to  tvv^enty  million  people  in 
the  space  of  twelve  years  by  fire,  sv/ord,  and  famine.^ 
To  this  bloody  expedition  Hung  Sew  Tseuen,  a  master 
of  modern  euphemism,  gave  the  name  of  Crusade  of  the 
Great  Peace.  For  twelve  years  this  "Crusade"  lasted, 
and  it  might  have  endured  much  longer  had  it  not  been 
for  the  help  given  by  outsiders.  It  was  there  that 
"Chinese"  Gordon  won  his  laurels  and  accomplished  a 
beneficent  work. 

There  were  politicians  at  the  Conference  who  argued 
that  Russia,  being  in  a  position  analogous  to  that  of 
China  in  1854,  ought,  like  her,  to  be  helped  by  the  Great 
Powers.  It  was,  they  held,  quite  as  much  in  the  interests 
of  Europe  as  in  hers.  But  however  forcible  their  argu- 
ments, they  encountered  an  insurmountable  obstacle  in 
the  fear  entertained  by  the  chiefs  of  the  leading  govern- 
ments lest  the  extreme  oppositional  parties  in  their 
respective  countries  should  make  capital  out  of  the  move 
and  turn  them  out  of  office.     They  invoked  the  interests 


^  Hung  Sew  Tseuen.     The  rebellion  lasted  from  1850  to  1864. 
2  The  superb  city  of  Nankin,  with  its  temples  and  porcelain  towers,  waS 
destroyed. 


BOLSHEVISM 

of  the  cause  of  which  they  were  the  champions  for  decHn- 
ing  to  expose  themselves  to  any  such  risk.  It  has  been 
contended  with  warmth,  and  possibly  with  truth,  that  if 
at  the  outset  the  Great  Powers  had  intervened  they  might 
with  a  comparatively  small  army  have  crushed  Bolshevism 
and  re-established  order  in  Russia.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  was  objected  that  even  heavy  guns  will  not  destroy 
ideas,  and  that  the  main  ideas  which  supplied  the  revo- 
lutionary movement  with  vital  force  were  too  deeply 
rooted  to  have  been  extirpated  by  the  most  formidable 
foreign  army.  That  is  true.  But  these  ideas  were  not 
especially  characteristic  of  Bolshevism.  Far  from  that, 
they  were  incompatible  with  it:  the  bestowal  of  land 
on  the  peasants,  an  equitable  reform  of  the  relations 
between  workmen  and  employers,  and  the  abolition  of 
the  hereditary  principle  in  the  distribution  of  everything 
that  confers  an  unfair  advantage  on  the  individual  or 
the  class  are  certainly  not  postulates  of  Lenin's  party. 
It  is  a  tenable  proposition  that  timely  military  assistance 
would  have  enabled  the  constructive  elements  of  Russia 
to  restore  conditions  of  normal  life,  but  the  worth  of 
timeliness  was  never  realized  by  the  heads  of  the  govern- 
ments who  undertook  to  make  laws  for  the  world.  They 
ignored  the  maxim  that  a  statesman,  when  applying 
measures,  must  keep  his  eye  on  the  clock,  inasmuch  as  the 
remedy  which  would  save  a  nation  at  one  moment  may 
hasten  its  ruin  at  another. 

The  expedients  and  counter-expedients  to  which  the 
Conference  had  recourse  in  their  fitful  struggles  with 
Bolshevism  v/ere  so  many  surprises  to  every  one  con- 
cerned, and  were  at  times  redolent  of  comedy.  But 
what  was  levity  and  ignorance  on  the  part  of  the  delegates 
meant  death,  and  worse  than  death,  to  tens  of  thousands  of 
their  protegees.  In  Russia  their  agents  zealously  egged 
on   the  order-loving  population   to  rise  up  against   the 

397 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

Bolsheviki  and  attack  their  strong  positions,  promising 
them  immediate  mihtary  help  if  they  succeeded.  But 
when,  these  exploits  having  been  duly  achieved,  the  agents 
were  asked  how  soon  the  foreign  reinforcements  might 
be  expected,  they  replied,  calling  for  patience.  After 
a  time  the  Bolsheviki  assailed  the  temporary  victors, 
generally  defeated  them,  and  then  put  a  multitude  of 
defenseless  people  to  the  sword.  Deplorable  incidents 
of  this  nature,  which  are  said  to  have  occurred  several 
times  during  the  spx-ing  of  1919,  shook  the  credit  of  the 
Allies,  and  kindled  a  feeling  of  just  resentment  among 
all  classes  of  Russians. 


XII 

HOW   BOLSHEVISM   WAS    FOSTERED 

THE  Allies,  then,  might  have  solved  the  Bolshevist 
problem  by  making  up  their  minds  which  of  the  two 
alternative  politics — war  against,  or  tolerance  of,  Bolshe- 
vism— they  preferred,  and  by  taking  suitable  action  in 
good  time.  If  they  had  handled  the  Russian  tangle  with 
skill  and  repaid  a  great  sacrifice  with  a  small  one  before 
it  was  yet  too  late,  they  might  have  hoped  to  harvest  in 
abundant  fruits  in  the  fullness  of  time.  But  they  belonged 
to  the  class  of  the  undecided,  whose  members  continually 
suffer  from  the  absence  of  a  middle  word  between  yes  and 
no,  connoting  what  is  neither  positive  nor  negative. 
They  let  the  opportunity  slip.  Not  only  did  they  with- 
hold timely  succor  to  either  side,  but  they  visited  some  of 
the  most  loyal  Russians  in  western  Europe  with  the  utmost 
rigor  of  coercion  laws.  They  hounded  them  down  as 
enemies.  They  cooped  them  up  in  cages  as  though  they 
were  Teuton  enemies.  They  encircled  them  with  barbed 
wire.  They  kept  many  of  them  hungry  and  thirsty, 
deprived  them  of  life's  necessaries  for  days,  and  in  some 
cases  reduced  the  discontented — and  who  in  their  place 
would  not  be  discontented? — to  pick  their  food  in  dust- 
bins among  garbage  and  refuse.  I  have  seen  officers  and 
men  in  France  who  had  shed  their  blood  joyfully  for  the 
Entente  cause  gradually  converted  to  Bolshevism  by  the 
misdeeds  of  the  Allied  authorities.  In  whose  interests? 
With  what  helpful  results? 

399 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

I  watched  the  development  of  anti-Ententism  among 
those  Russians  with  painful  interest,  and  in  favorable 
conditions  for  observation,  and  I  say  without  hesitation 
that  rancor  against  the  Allies  burns  as  vehemently  and 
intensely  among  the  anti-Bolshevists  as  among  their  ad- 
versaries. "My  country  as  a  whole  is  bitterly  hostile 
to  her  former  allies,"  exclaimed  an  eminent  Russian, 
"for  as  soon  as  she  had  rendered  them  inestimable  ser- 
vices, at  the  cost  of  her  political  existence,  they  turned 
their  backs  upon  her  as  though  her  agony  were  no  affair 
of  theirs.  To-day  the  nation  is  divided  on  many  issues. 
Dissensions  and  quarrels  have  riven  and  shattered  it  into 
shreds.  But  in  one  respect  Russia  is  still  united — in  the 
vehemence  of  her  sentiment  toward  the  Allies,  who  first 
drained  her  life-blood  and  then  abandoned  her  prostrate 
body  to  beasts  of  prey.  Some  part  of  the  hatred  engen- 
dered might  have  been  mitigated  if  representatives  of  the 
provisional  Russian  government  had  been  admitted  to 
the  Conference.  A  statesman  would  have  insisted  upon 
opening  at  least  this  little  safety-valve.  It  would  have 
helped  and  could  not  have  harmed  the  Allies.  It  would 
have  bound  the  Russians  to  them.  For  Russia's  dele- 
gates, the  men  sent  or  empowered  by  Kolchak  and  his 
colleagues  to  represent  them,  would  have  been  the  ex- 
ponents of  a  helpless  community  hovering  between  lite 
and  death.  They  could  and  would  have  gone  far  toward 
conciliating  the  world-dictators,  to  whose  least  palatable 
decisions  they  might  have  hesitated  to  offer  unbending 
opposition.  And  this  acquiescence,  however  provisional, 
would  have  tended  to  relieve  the  Allies  of  a  sensible  part 
of  their  load  of  responsibility.  It  would  also  have  linked 
the  Russians,  loosely,  perhaps,  but  perceptibly,  to  the 
Western  Powers.  It  would  have  imparted  a  settled 
Ententophil  direction  to  Kolchak's  policy,  and  com- 
municated it  to  the  nation.     In  short,  it  might  have  dis-» 

400 


HOW  BOLSHEVISM  WAS  FOSTERED 

pelled  some  of  the  storm-clouds  that  are  gathering  in  the 
east  of  Europe." 

But  the  Alhes,  true  to  their  wont  of  drifting,  put  off 
all  decisive  action,  and  let  things  slip  and  slide,  for  the 
Germans  to  put  in  order.  There  were  no  Russians, 
therefore,  at  the  Conference,  and  there  lies  no  obligation 
on  any  political  group  or  party  in  the  anarchist  Slav  state 
to  hold  to  the  Allies.  But  it  would  be  an  error  to  imagine 
that  they  have  a  white  sheet  of  paper  on  which  to  trace 
their  line  of  action  and  write  the  names  of  France  and 
Britain  as  their  future  friends.  They  are  filled  with 
angry  disgust  against  these  two  ex-Allies,  and  of  the  two 
the  feeling  against  France  is  especially  intense.^ 

It  is  a  truism  to  repeat  in  a  different  form  what  Messrs. 
Lloyd  George  and  Wilson  repeatedly  affirmed,  but  ap- 
parently without  realizing  what  they  said :  that  the  peace 
which  they  regard  as  the  crowning  work  of  their  lives 
deserves  such  value  as  it  may  possess  from  the  assumption 
that  Russia,  when  she  recovers  from  her  cataleptic  fit, 
will  be  the  ally  of  the  Powers  that  have  dismembered  her. 
If  this  postulate  should  prove  erroneous,  Germany  may 
form  an  anti-Allied  league  of  a  large  number  of  nations 
which  it  would  be  invidious  to  enumerate  here.  But  it  is 
manifest  that  this  consummation  would  imperil  Poland, 
Czechoslovakia,  and  Jugoslavia,  and  sweep  away  the  last 
vestiges  of  the  peace  settlement.  And  although  it  would 
be  rash  to  make  a  forecast  of  the  policy  which  new  Russia 
will  strike  out,  it  would  be  impolitic  to  blink  the  conclu- 
sions toward  which  recent  events  significantly  point. 

In  April  a  Russian  statesman  said  to  me:  "The  Allied 
delegates  are  unconsciously  thrusting  from  them  the  only 
means  by  which  they  can  .still  render  peace  durable  and  a 

'  It  is  right  to  say  that  during  the  summer  months  a  considerable  section 
of  the  anti-Bolshevists  modified  their  view  of  Britain's  policy,  and  expressed 
gratitude  for  the  aid  bestowed  on  Kolchak,  Denikin,  and  Yudenitch,  with- 
out which  their  armies  would  have  collapeed. 

401 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

fellowship  of  the  nations  possible.  Unwittingly  they  are 
augmenting  the  forces  of  Bolshevism  and  raising  political 
enemies  against  themselves.  Consider  how  they  are  be- 
having toward  us.  Recently  a  number  of  Russian  pris- 
oners escaped  from  Germany  to  Holland,  whereupon  the 
Allied  representatives  packed  them  off  by  force  and  against 
their  will  to  Dantzig,  to  be  conveyed  thence  to  Libau, 
where  they  have  become  recruits  of  the  Bolshevist  Red 
Guards.  Those  men  might  have  been  usefully  employed 
in  the  Allied  countries,  to  whose  cause  they  were  devoted, 
but  so  exasperated  were  they  at  their  forcible  removal  to 
Libau  that  many  of  them  declared  that  they  would  join 
the  Bolshevist  forces. 

"Even  our  official  representatives  are  seemingly  in- 
cluded in  the  category  of  suspects.  Our  Minister  in 
Peking  was  refused  the  right  of  sending  ciphered  telegrams 
and  our  charge  d'affaires  in  a  European  capital  suffered 
the  same  deprivation,  while  the  Bolshevist  envoy  enjoyed 
this  diplomatic  privilege.  A  councilor  of  embassy  in  one 
Allied  country  was  refused  a  passport  visa  for  another 
until  he  declared  that  if  the  refusal  were  upheld  he  would 
return  a  high  order  which  for  extraordinary  services 
he  had  received  from  the  government  whose  embassy 
was  vetoing  his  visa.  On  the  national  festival  of  a  certain 
Allied  country  the  charge  d'affaires  of  Russia  was  the 
only  member  of  the  diplomatic  corps  who  received  no 
official  invitation." 

One  day  in  January,  when  a  crowd  had  gathered  on  the 
Quai  d'Orsay,  watching  the  delegates  from  the  various 
countries — British,  American,  Italian,  Japanese,  Ru- 
manian, etc. — enter  the  stately  palace  to  safeguard  the 
interests  of  their  respective  countries  and  legislate  for 
the  human  race,  a  Russian  officer  passed,  accompanied 
by  an  illiterate  soldier  who  had  seen  hard  service  first 
under  the  Grand  Duke  Nicholas,  and  then  in  a  Russian 

402 


HOW  BOLSHEVISM  WAS  FOSTERED 

brigade  in  France.  The  soldier  gazed  wistfully  at  the 
palace,  then,  turning  to  the  officer,  asked,  "Are  they 
letting  any  of  our  people  in  there  ?"  The  officer  answered, 
evasively:  "They  are  thinking  it  over.  Perhaps  they 
will."  Whereupon  his  attendant  blurted  out:  "Thinking 
it  over!  What  thinking  is  wanted?  Did  we  not  fight 
for  them  till  we  were  mowed  down  like  grass?  Did  not 
millions  of  Russian  bodies  cover  the  fields,  the  roads,  and 
the  camps?  Did  we  not  face  the  German  great  guns  with 
only  bayonets  and  sticks?  Have  we  done  too  little  for 
them?  What  more  could  we  have  done  to  be  allowed  in 
there  with  the  others?  I  fought  since  the  war  began,  and 
was  twice  wounded.  My  five  brothers  were  called  up  at 
the  same  time  as  myself,  and  all  five  have  been  killed,  and 
now  the  Russians  are  not  wanted!  The  door  is  shut  in 
our  faces.  .  .  ." 

Sooner  or  later  Russian  anarchy,  like  that  of  China, 
will  come  to  an  end,  and  the  leaders  charged  with  the 
reconstitution  of  the  country,  if  men  of  knowledge,  pa- 
triotism, and  character,  will  adopt  a  program  conducive 
to  the  well-being  of  the  nation.  To  what  extent,  one 
may  ask,  is  its  welfare  compatible  with  the  status  quo 
in  eastern  Europe,  which  the  Allies,  distracted  by  con- 
flicting principles  and  fitful  impulse,  left  or  created 
and  hope  to  perpetuate  by  means  of  a  parchment  in- 
strument ? 

The  zeal  with  which  the  French  authorities  went  to 
work  to  prevent  the  growth  of  Bolshevism  in  their  coun- 
try, especially  among  the  Russians  there,  is  beyond  dis- 
pute. Unhappily  it  proved  inefficacious.  Indeed,  it  is 
no  exaggeration  to  say  that  it  defeated  its  object  and 
produced  the  contrary  effect.  For  attention  was  so  com- 
pletely absorbed  by  the  aim  that  no  consideration  re- 
mained over  for  the  means  of  attaining  it.  A  few  con- 
crete examples  will  bring  this  home  to  the  reader.  The 
27  403 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

following  narratives  emanate  from  an  eminent  Russian, 
who  is  devoted  to  the  Allies. 

There  were  scores  of  thousands  of  Russian  troops  in 
France.  Most  of  them  fought  valiantly,  others  half- 
heartedly, and  a  few  refused  to  fight  at  all.  But  instead 
of  making  distinctions  the  French  authorities,  moved 
by  the  instinct  of  self-preservation,  and  preferring  pre- 
vention to  cure,  tarred  them  all  with  the  same  brush. 
"Give  a  dog  a  bad  name  and  hang  him,"  says  the  proverb, 
and  it  was  exemplified  in  the  case  of  the  Russians,  who 
soon  came  to  be  regarded  as  a  tertium  quid  between  enemies 
of  public  order  and  suspicious  neutrals.  They  were  pro- 
foundly mistrusted.  Their  officers  were  deprived  of  their 
authority  over  their  own  men  and  placed  under  the  com- 
mand of  excellent  French  officers,  who  cannot  be  blamed 
for  not  understanding  the  temper  of  the  Slavs  nor  for 
rubbing  them  against  the  grain.  The  privates,  seeing 
their  superiors  virtually  degraded,  concluded  that  they 
had  forfeited  their  claim  to  respect,  and  treated  them 
accordingly.  That  gave  the  death-blow  to  discipline. 
The  officers,  most  of  whom  were  devoted  heart  and  soul 
to  the  cause  of  the  Allies,  with  which  they  had  fondly 
identified  their  own,  lost  heart.  After  various  attempts 
to  get  themselves  reinstated,  their  feelings  toward  the 
nation,  which  was  nowise  to  blame  for  the  excessive  zeal 
of  its  public  servants,  underwent  a  radical  change. 
Blazing  indignation  consumed  whatever  affection  they 
had  originally  nurtured  for  the  French,  and  in  many 
cases  also  for  the  other  Allies,  and  they  went  home  to  com- 
municate their  animus  to  their  countrymen.  The  soldiers, 
who  now  began  to  be  taunted  and  vilipended  as  Boches, 
threw  all  discipline  to  the  winds  and,  feeling  every  hand 
raised  against  them,  resolved  to  raise  their  hands  against 
every  man.  These  were  the  beginnings  of  the  process  of 
"  bolshevization. " 

404 


HOW   BOLSHEVISM  WAS  FOSTERED 

This  anti-Russian  spirit  grew  intenser  as  time  lapsed. 
Thousands  of  Russian  soldiers  were  sent  out  to  work  for 
private  employers,  not  by  the  War  Ministry,  but  by 
the  Alinistry  of  Agriculture,  under  whom  they  were 
placed.  They  were  fed  and  paid  a  wage  which  under 
normal  circumstances  should  have  contented  them,  for 
it  was  more  than  they  used  to  receive  in  pre-war  days  in 
their  own  country.  But  the  circumstances  were  not 
normal.  Side  by  side  with  them  worked  Frenchmen, 
many  of  whom  were  unable  physically  to  compete  with 
the  sturdy  peasants  from  Perm  and  Vyatka.  And  when 
propagandists  pointed  out  to  them  that  the  French  worker 
was  paid  loo  per  cent,  more,  they  brooded  over  the 
inequality  and  labeled  it  as  they  were  told.  For  over- 
work, too,  the  rate  of  pay  was  still  more  unequal.  One 
result  of  this  differential  treatment  was  the  estrangement 
of  the  two  races  as  represented  by  the  two  classes  of  work- 
men, and  the  growth  of  mutual  dislike.  But  there  was 
another.  When  they  learned,  as  they  did  in  time,  that 
the  employer  was  selling  the  produce  of  their  labor  at  a 
profit  of  400  and  500  per  cent.,  they  had  no  hesitation 
about  repeating  the  formulas  suggested  to  them  by 
socialist  propagandists:  "We  are  worldng  for  blood- 
suckers. The  bourgeois  must  be  exterminated."  In 
this  way  bitterness  against  the  Allies  and  hatred  of  the 
capitalists  were  inculcated  in  tens  of  thousands  of  Rus- 
sians who  a  few  m.oi  '.hs  before  were  honest,  simple- 
minded  peasants  and  well-disciplined  soldiers.  Many  of 
these  men,  when  they  returned  to  their  country,  joined 
the  Red  Guards  of  Bolshevism  with  spontaneous  ardor. 
They  needed  no  pressing. 

There  was  one  young  officer  of  the  Guards,  in  particular, 

named  G ,  who  belonged  to  a  very  good  family  and 

was  an  exceptionally  cultured  gentleman.  Music  was  his 
recreation,  and  he  was  a  virtuoso  on  the  violin.     In  the 

405 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

war  he  had  distinguished  himself  first  on  the  Russian 
front  and  then  on  the  French,  He  had  given  of  his  best, 
for  he  was  grievously  wounded,  had  his  left  hand  para- 
lyzed, and  lost  his  power  of  playing  the  violin  forever. 
He  received  a  high  decoration  from  the  French  govern- 
ment. For  the  English  nation  he  professed  and  displayed 
great  affection,  and  in  particular  he  revered  King  George, 
perhaps  because  of  his  physical  resemblance  to  the  Tsar. 
And  when  King  George  was  to  visit  Paris  he  rejoiced 
exceedingly  at  the  prospect  of  seeing  him.  Orders  were 
issued  for  the  troops  to  come  out  and  line  the  principal 
routes  along  which  the  monarch  would  pass.  The  French 
naturally  had  the  best  places,  but  the  Place  de  I'Etoile 

was  reserved  for  the  Allied  forces.     G ,   delighted, 

went  to  his  superior  officer  and  inquired  where  the  Rus- 
sians were  to  stand.  The  general  did  not  knov/,  but 
promised  to  ascertain.  Accordingly  he  put  the  question 
to  the  French  commander,  who  replied :  * '  Russian  troops  ? 
There  is  no  place  for  any  Russian  troops."     With  tears 

in  his  eyes  G recounted  this  episode,  adding:  "We, 

who  fought  and  bled,  and  lost  oar  lives  or  were  crippled, 
had  to  swallow  this  humiliation,  while  Poles  and  Czecho- 
slovaks, who  had  only  just  arrived  from  America  in  their 
brand-new  uniforms,  and  had  never  been  under  fire,  had 
places  allotted  to  them  in  the  pageant.  Is  that  fair  to 
the  troops  without  whose  exploits  there  would  have  been 
no  Polish  or  Czechoslovak  officers,  no  French  victory,  no 
triumphal  entry  of  King  George  V  into  Paris?" 


XIII 

SIDELIGHTS    ON   THE   TREATY 

FROM  the  opening  of  the  Conference  fundamental 
differences  sprang  up  which  spHt  the  delegates  into 
two  main  parties,  of  which  one  was  solicitous  mainly 
about  the  resettlement  of  the  world  and  its  future  main- 
stay, the  League  of  Nations,  and  the  other  about  the 
furtherance  of  national  interests,  which,  it  maintained, 
was  equally  indispensable  to  an  enduring  peace.  The 
latter  were  ready  to  welcome  the  League  on  condition 
that  it  was  utilized  in  the  service  of  their  national  pur- 
poses, but  not  if  it  countered  them.  To  bridge  the  chasm 
between  the  two  was  the  task  to  which  President  Wilson 
courageously  set  his  hand.  Unluckily,  by  way  of  qualify- 
ing for  the  experiment,  he  receded  from  his  own  strong 
position,  and  having  cut  his  moorings  from  one  shofe, 
failed  to  reach  the  other.  His  pristine  idea  was  worthy 
of  a  world-leader;  had,  in  fact,  been  entertained  and  ad- 
vocated by  some  of  the  foremost  spirits  of  modem  times. 
He  purposed  bringing  about  conditions  under  which  the 
pacific  progress  of  the  world  might  be  safeguarded  in  a 
very  large  measure  and  for  an  indefinite  time.  But  being 
very  imperfectly  acquainted  with  the  concrete  conditions 
of  European  and  Asiatic  peoples — he  had  never  before 
felt  the  pulsation  of  international  life — his  ideas  about  the 
ways  and  means  were  hazy,  and  his  calculations  bore  no 
real  reference  to  the  elements  of  the  problem.  Conse- 
quently, with  what  seemed  a  wide  horizon  and  a  generous 

407 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

ambition,  his  grasp  was  neither  firm  nor  comprehensive 
enough  for  such  a  revolutionary  undertaking.  In  no  case 
could  he  make  headway  without  the  voluntary  co-opera- 
tion of  the  nations  themselves,  who  in  their  own  best 
interests  might  have  submitted  to  heavy  sacrifices,  to 
which  their  leaders,  whom  he  treated  as  true  exponents 
of  their  will,  refused  their  consent.  But  he  scouted  the 
notion  of  a  world-parliament.  Whenever,  therefore,  con- 
templating a  particular  issue,  not  as  an  independent  ques- 
tion in  itself,  but  as  an  integral  part  of  a  larger  problem, 
he  made  a  suggestion  seemingly  tending  toward  the  ulti- 
mate goal,  his  motion  encountered  resolute  opposition  in 
the  face  of  which  he  frequently  retreated. 

At  the  outset,  on  which  so  much  depended,  the  peoples 
as  distinguished  from  the  governments  appeared  to  be 
in  general  sympathy  with  his  principal  aim,  and  it  seemed 
at  the  time  that  if  appealed  to  on  a  clear  issue  they  would 
have  given  him  their  whole-hearted  support,  provided 
always  that,  true  to  his  own  principles,  he  pressed  these 
to  the  fullest  extent  and  admitted  no  such  invidious  dis- 
tinctions as  privileged  and  unprivileged  nations.  This 
belief  was  confirmed  by  what  I  heard  from  men  of  mark, 
leaders  of  the  labor  people,  and  three  Prime  Ministers. 
They  assured  me  that  such  an  appeal  would  have  evoked 
an  enthusiastic  response  in  their  respective  countries. 
Convinced  that  the  principles  laid  down  by  the  President 
during  the  last  phases  of  the  war  would  go  far  to  meet  the 
exigencies  of  the  conjuncture,  I  ventured  to  write  on  one 
of  the  occasions,  when  neither  party  would  yield  to  the 
other:  "The  very  least  that  Mr.  Wilson  might  now  do, 
if  the  deadlock  continues,  is  to  publish  to  the  world  the 
desirable  objects  which  the  United  States  are  disinter- 
estedly, if  not  always  wisely,  striving  for,  and  leave  the 
judgment  to  the  peoples  concerned."  ^ 

'  Tlie  Daily  Telegraph,  March  28,  1919. 

408 


SIDELIGHTS  ON  THE  TREATY 

But  he  recoiled  from  the  venture.  Perhaps  it  was 
already  too  late.  In  the  judi^ment  of  many,  his  assent  to 
the  suppression  of  the  problem  of  the  freedom  of  the  seas, 
however  unavoidable  as  a  tactical  expedient,  knelled  the 
political  world  back  to  the  unregenerate  days  of  stratej^ical 
frontiers,  secret  alliances,  military  preparations,  financial 
burdens,  and  the  balance  of  power.  On  that  day,  his 
grasp  on  the  banner  relaxing,  it  fell,  to  be  raised,  it  may  be, 
at  some  future  time  by  the  peoples  whom  he  had  aspired 
to  lead.  The  contests  which  he  waged  after  that  first 
defeat  had  Uttle  prospect  of  success,  and  soon  the  pith 
and  marrow  of  the  issue  completely  disappeared.  The 
utmost  he  could  still  hope  for  was  a  paper  covenant — 
which  is  a  different  thing  from  a  genuine  accord — to  take 
home  with  him  to  Washington.  And  this  his  colleagues 
did  not  grudge  him.  They  were  operating  with  a  different 
cast  of  mind  upon  a  wholly  different  set  of  ideas.  Their 
aims,  which  they  pursued  with  no  less  energy  and  with 
greater  perseverance  than  Mr.  Wilson  displayed,  were 
national.  Some  of  them  implicitly  took  the  ground  that 
Germany,  having  plunged  the  world  in  war,  would  persist 
indefinitely  in  her  nefarious  machinations,  and  must, 
therefore,  in  the  interests  of  general  peace,  be  crippled 
militarily,  financially,  economically^  and  politically,  for 
as  long  a  time  as  possible,  while  her  potential  enemies 
must  for  the  same  reason  be  strengthened  to  the  utmost 
at  her  expense,  and  that  this  condition  of  things  must  be 
upheld  through  the  beneficent  instrumentality  of  the 
League  of  Nations. 

On  these  conflicting  issues  ceaseless  contention  went 
on  from  the  start,  yet  for  lack  of  a  strong  personality  of 
sound,  over-ruling  judgment  the  contest  dragged  on 
without  result.  For  months  the  demon  of  procrastina- 
tion seemed  to  have  possessed  the  souls  of  the  principal 
delegates,   and  frustrated  their  professed  intentions  to 

409 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

get  through  the  work  expeditiously.  Even  unforeseen 
incidents  led  to  dangerous  delay.  Every  passing  episode 
became  a  ground  for  postponing  the  vital  issue,  although 
each  day  lost  increased  the  difficulties  of  achieving  the 
principal  object,  which  was  the  conclusion  of  peace.  For 
example,  the  committee  dealing  with  the  question  of 
reparations  would  reach  a  decision,  say,  that  Germany 
must  pay  a  certain  sum,  which  would  entail  a  century  of 
strenuous  effort,  accompanied  with  stringent  thrift  and 
self-denial;  while  the  Economic  Committee  decided  that 
her  supply  of  raw  material  should  be  restricted  within 
such  narrow  limits  as  to  put  such  payment  wholly  out 
of  her  power.  And  this  difference  of  view  necessitated  a 
postponement  of  the  whole  issue.  Mr.  Hughes,  the 
Premier  of  Australia,  commenting  on  this  shilly-shallying, 
said  with  truth :^  "The  minds  of  the  people  are  grievously 
perturbed.  The  long  delay,  coupled  with  fears  lest  that 
the  Peace  Treaty,  when  it  does  come,  should  prove  to  be  a 
peace  unworthy,  unsatisfactory,  unenduring,  has  made 
the  hearts  of  the  people  sick.  We  were  told  that  the 
Peace  Treaty  would  be  ready  in  the  coming  week,  but 
we  look  round  and  see  half  a  world  engaged  in  war,  or 
preparation  for  war.  Bolshevism  is  spreading  with  the 
rapidity  of  a  prairie  fire.  The  Allies  have  been  forced 
to  retreat  from  some  of  the  most  fertile  parts  of  southern 
Russia,  and  Allied  troops,  mostly  British,  at  Murmansk 
and  Archangel  are  in  grave  danger  of  destruction.  Yet 
we  were  told  that  peace  was  at  hand,  and  that  the  world 
was  safe  for  liberty  and  democracy.  It  is  not  fine  phrases 
about  peace,  liberty,  and  making  the  world  safe  for 
democracy  that  the  world  wants,  but  deeds.  The  peo- 
ples of  the  Allied  countries  justifiably  desire  to  be  reas- 
sured by  plain,   comprehensible  statements,   instead  of 

1  In  a  speech  delivered  at  a  dinner  given  in  Paris  on  April  19,  1919,  by 
the  Commonwealth  of  Australia  to  Australian  soldiers, 

419 


SIDELIGHTS  ON  THE  TREATY 

long-drawn-out  negotiations  and  the  thick  veil  of  secrecy 
in  which  these  were  shrouded." 

It  requires  an  effort  to  believe  that  procrastination 
was  raised  to  the  level  of  a  theory-  by  men  whose  experience 
of  political  affairs  was  regarded  as  a  guarantee  of  the 
soundness  of  their  judgment.  Yet  it  is  an  incontro- 
vertible fact  that  dilatory  tactics  were  seriously  suggested 
as  a  policy  at  the  Conference.  It  was  maintained  that, 
far  from  running  risks  by  postponing  a  settlement,  the 
Entente  nations  were,  on  the  contrary,  certain  to  find 
the  ground  better  prepared  the  longer  the  day  of  reckon- 
ing was  put  off.  Germany,  they  contended,  had  recov- 
ered temporarily  from  the  Bolshevik  fever,  but  the  im- 
provement was  fleeting.  The  process  of  decomposition 
was  becoming  intenser  day  by  day,  although  the  symp- 
toms were  not  always  manifest.  Lack  of  industrial  pro- 
duction, of  foreign  trade  and  sound  finances,  was  gnawing 
at  the  vitals  of  the  Teuton  Republic.  The  army  of 
unemployed  and  discontented  was  swelling.  Soon  the 
sinister  consequences  of  this  stagnation  would  take  the 
form  of  rebellions  and  revolts,  followed  by  disintegration. 
And  this  conjunction  would  be  the  opportunity  of  the 
Entente  Powers,  who  could  then  step  in,  present  their 
bills,  impose  their  restrictions,  and  knead  the  Teuton 
dough  into  any  shape  they  relished.  Then  it  would 
be  feasible  to  prohibit  the  Austrian-Germans  from  ever 
entering  the  Republic  as  a  federated  state.  In  a  word, 
the  Allied  governments  need  only  command,  and  the 
Teutons  would  hasten  to  obey.  It  is  hardly  credible 
that  men  of  experience  in  foreign  politics  should  build 
upon  such  insecure  foundations  as  these.  It  is  but  fair 
to  say  the  Conference  rejected  this  singular  program 
in  theory  while  unintentionally  carrying  it  out. 

Although   everybody   admitted    that   the   liquidation 

411 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

of  the  world  conflict  followed  by  a  return  to  normal 
conditions  was  the  one  thing  that  pressed  for  settlement, 
so  intent  were  the  plenipotentiaries  on  preventing  wars 
among  unborn  generations  that  they  continued  to  over- 
look the  pressing  needs  of  their  contemporaries.  It  is 
at  the  beginning  and  end  of  an  enterprise  that  the  danger 
of  failure  is  greatest,  and  it  was  the  opening  moves  of 
the  Allies  that  proved  baleful  to  their  subsequent  under- 
takings. Germany,  one  would  think,  might  have  been 
deprived  summarily  of  everything  which  was  to  be 
ultimately  and  justly  taken  from  her,  irrespective  of  its 
final  destination.  The  first  and  most  important  opera- 
tion being  the  severance  of  the  provinces  allotted  to 
other  peoples,  their  redistribution  might  safely  have  been 
left  until  afterward.  And  hardly  less  important  was  the 
despatch  of  an  army  to  eastern  Europe.  Then  Germany, 
broken  in  spirit,  with  Allied  troops  on  both  her  fronts, 
between  the  two  jaws  of  a  vise,  could  not  have  said  nay 
to  the  conditions.  But  this  method  presupposed  a  plan 
which  unluckily  did  not  exist.  It  assumed  that  the  peace 
terms  had  been  carefully  considered  in  advance,  whereas 
the  Allies  prepared  for  war  during  hostilities,  and  for 
peace  during  the  negotiations.  And  they  went  about  this 
in  a  leisurely,  lackadaisical  way,  whereas  expedition 
was  the  key  to  success. 

As  for  a  durable  peace,  involving  general  disarmament, 
it  should  have  been  outlined  in  a  comprehensive  program, 
which  the  delegates  had  not  drawn  up,  and  it  would  have 
become  feasible  only  if  the  will  to  pursue  it  proceeded 
from  principle,  not  from  circumstances.  In  no  case 
could  it  be  accomplished  without  the  knowledge  and 
co-operation  of  the  peoples  themselves,  nor  within  the 
time-limits  fixed  for  the  work  of  the  Conference.  For 
the  abolition  of  war  and  the  creation  of  a  new  ordering, 
like  human  progress,  is  a  long  process.     It  admits  of  a 

412 


SIDELIGHTS  ON  THE    IREATY 

variety  of  beginnings,  but  one  can  never  be  sure  of  the 
end,  seeing  that  it  presupposes  a  radical  change  in  the 
temper  of  the  peoples,  one  might  almost  say  a  remodeling 
of  human  nature.  It  can  only  be  the  effect  of  a  variety 
of  causes,  mainly  moral,  operating  over  a  long  period  of 
time.  Peace  with  Germany  was  a  matter  for  the  govern- 
ments concerned;  the  elimination  of  war  could  only  be 
accomplished  by  the  peoples.  The  one  was  in  the  main 
a  political  problem,  the  other  social,  economical,  and 
ethical. 

Mr.  Balfour  asserted  optimistically^  that  the  work 
of  concluding  peace  with  Germany  was  a  very  simple 
matter.  None  the  less  it  took  the  Conference  over  five 
months  to  arrange  it.  So  desperately  slow  was  the 
progress  of  the  Supreme  Council  that  on  the  213th  day 
of  the  Peace  Conference,-  two  months  after  the  Germans 
had  signed  the  conditions,  not  one  additional  treaty  had 
been  concluded,  nay,  none  was  even  ready  for  signature. 
The  Italian  plenipotentiary,  Signor  Tittoni,  thereupon 
addressed  his  colleagues  frankly  on  the  subject  and  asked 
them  whether  they  were  not  neglecting  their  primary 
duty,  which  was  to  conclude  treaties  with  the  various 
enemies  who  had  ceased  to  fight  in  November  of  the 
previous  year  and  were  already  waiting  for  over  nine 
months  to  resume  normal  life,  and  whether  the  delegates 
were  justified  in  seeking  to  discharge  the  functions  of  a 
supreme  board  for  the  government  of  all  Europe.  He 
pointed  out  that  nobody  could  hope  to  profit  by  the  state 
of  disorder  and  paralysis  for  which  this  procrastination 
was  answerable,  the  economic  effects  making  themselves 
felt  sooner  or  later  in  every  country.  He  added  that  the 
cost  of  the  war  had  been  calculated  for  every  month, 
every  week,  every  day,  and  that  the  total  impressed  every 
one  profoundly;  but  that  nobody  had  thought  it  worth 
iln  March,  1919.  2  August  19,  1919. 

413 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

his  while  to  count  up  the  atrocious  cost  of  this  incredibly 
slow  peace  and  of  the  waste  of  wealth  caused  every  week 
and  month  that  it  dragged  on.  Italy,  he  lamented,  felt 
this  loss  more  keenly  than  her  partners  because  her  peace 
had  not  yet  been  concluded.  He  felt  moved,  therefore, 
he  said,  to  tell  them  that  the  business  of  governing 
Europe  to  which  the  Conference  had  been  attending  all 
those  months  was  not  precisely  the  work  for  which  it  was 
convoked.^ 

This  sharp  and  timely  admonition  was  the  preamble  of  a 
motion.  The  Conference  was  just  then  about  to  separate 
for  a  "well-earned  holiday,"  during  which  its  members 
might  renew  their  spent  energies  and  return  in  October 
to  resume  their  labors,  the  peoples  in  the  meanwhile 
bearing  the  cost  in  blood  and  substance.  The  Italian 
delegate  objected  to  any  such  break  and  adjured  them  to 
remain  at  their  posts.  Why,  he  asked,  should  ill-starred 
Italy,  which  had  already  sustained  so  many  and  such  pain- 
ful losses,  be  condemned  to  sacrifice  further  enormous 
sums  in  order  that  the  delegates  who  had  been  frittering 
away  their  time  tackling  irrelevant  issues,  and  endeavor- 
ing to  rule  all  Europe,  might  have  a  rest?  Why  should 
they  interrupt  the  sessions  before  making  peace  with 
Austria,  with  Hungary,  with  Bulgaria,  with  Turkey,  and 
enabling  Italy  to  return  to  normal  life?  Wh}^  should 
time  and  opportunity  be  given  to  the  Turks  and  Kurds 
for  the  massacre  of  Armenian  men,  women,  and  children? 
This  candid  reminder  is  said  to  have  had  a  sobering 
effect  on  the  versatile  delegates  yearning  for  a  holiday. 
The  situation  that  evoked  it  will  arouse  the  passing  won- 
der of  level-headed  men. 

It  is  worth  recording  that  such  was  the  atmosphere  of 

suspicion  among  the  delegates  that  the  motives  for  this 

holiday  were  believed  by  some  to  be  less  the  need  of 

^  Cf.  Corriere  delta  Sera,  August  20,  19 19. 

414 


SIDELIGHTS  ON  THE  TREATY 

repose  than  an  unavowablc  desire  to  give  time  to  the 
Hapsburgs  to  recover  the  Crown  of  St.  Stephen  as  the 
first  step  toward  seizing  that  of  Austria.^  The  Austrians 
desired  exemption  from  the  obligation  to  make  repara- 
tions and  pay  crushing  taxes,  and  one  of  the  delegates, 
with  a  leaning  for  that  country,  was  not  averse  to  the  idea. 
As  the  states  that  arose  on  the  ruins  of  the  Hapsburg 
monarchy  were  not  considered  enemies  by  the  Conference, 
it  was  suggested  that  Austria  herself  should  enjoy  the 
same  distinction.  But  the  Italian  plenipotentiaries  ob- 
jected and  Signor  Tittoni  asked,  "Will  it  perhaps  be 
asserted  that  there  was  no  enemy  against  whom  we 
Italians  fought  for  three  years  and  a  half,  losing  half  a 
million  slain  and  incurring  a  debt  of  eighty  thousand 
millions?" 

A  French  journal,  touching  on  this  Austrian  problem, 
wrote:-  "Austria-Hungary  has  been  killed  and  now  France 
is  striving  to  raise  it  to  life  again.  But  Italy  is  furiously 
opposed  to  everything  that  might  lead  to  an  understand- 
ing among  the  new  states  formed  out  of  the  old  possessions 
of  the  Hapsbujgs.  That,  in  fact,  is  why  our  transalpine 
allies  were  so  favorable  to  the  union  of  Austria  w4th 
Germany.  France  on  her  side,  whose  one  overruling 
thought  is  to  reduce  her  vanquished  enemy  to  the  most 
complete  impotence,  France  who  is  afraid  of  being 
afraid,  will  not  tolerate  an  Austria  joined  to  the  German 
Federation."  Here  the  principle  of  self-determination 
went  for  nothing. 

Before  the  Conference  had  sat  for  a  month  it  was 
angrily  assailed  by  the  peoples  who  had  hoped  so  much 
from  its  love  of  justice — Egyptians,  Koreans,  Irishmen 
from  Ireland  and  from  America,  Albanians,  Frenchmen 
from  Mauritius  and  Syria,  Moslems  from  Aderbeidjan, 


1  Ibidem  (Corriere  della  Sera,  August  20,  1919). 
^  L'Humanite,  May  21,  1919. 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

Persians,  Tartars,  Kirghizes,  and  a  host  of  others,  who 
have  been  aptly  likened  to  the  halt  and  maimed  among 
the  nations  waiting  round  the  diplomatic  Pool  of  Siloam 
for  the  miracle  of  the  moving  of  the  waters  that  never 
came.-^ 

These  peoples  had  heard  that  a  great  and  potent  world- 
reformer  had  arisen  whose  mission  it  was  to  redress 
secular  grievances  and  confer  liberty  upon  oppressed 
nations,  tribes,  and  tongues,  and  they  sent  their  envoys 
to  plead  before  him.  And  these  wandered  about  the 
streets  of  Paris  seeking  the  intercession  of  delegates. 
Ministers,  and  journalists  who  might  obtain  for  them 
admission  to  the  presence  of  the  new  Messiah  or  his 
apostles.  But  all  doors  were  closed  to  them.  One  of 
the  petitioners  whose  language  was  vernacular  English, 
as  he  was  about  to  shake  the  dust  of  Paris  from  his  boots, 
quoting  Sydney  Smith,  remarked:  "They,  too,  are 
Pharisees.  They  would  do  the  Good  Samaritan,  but  with- 
out the  oil  and  twopence.  How  has  it  come  to  pass  that 
the  Jews  without  an  official  delegate  commanded  the 
support — the  militant  support — of  the  Supreme  Council, 
v/hich  did  not  hesitate  to  tyrannize  eastern  Europe  for 
their  sake?" 

Involuntarily  the  student  of  politics  called  to  mind  the 
report  written  to  Baron  Hager  -  by  one  of  his  secret 
agents  during  the  Congress  of  Vienna:  "Public  opinion 
continues  to  be  unfavorable  to  the  Congress.  On  all 
sides  one  hears  it  said  that  there  is  no  harmony,  that  they 
are  no  longer  solicitous  about  the  re-estabhshment  of 
order  and  justice,  but  are  bent  only  on  forcing  one 
another's  hands,  each  one  grabbing  as  much  as  he  can. 
...  It  is  said  that  the  Congress  will  end  because  it  must, 
but  that  it  will  leave  things  more  entangled  than  it 


1  The  Nation,  August  23,  1919. 

2  Chief  of  the  Austrian  police  at  Vienna  Congress  in  the  years  1 814-15. 

416 


SIDELIGHTS  ON  THE  TREATY 

found  them.  .  .  .  The  peoples,  who  in  consequence  of 
the  success,  the  sincerity,  and  the  noble-mindedness  of  this 
superb  coalition  had  conceived  such  esteem  for  their 
leaders  and  such  attachment  to  them,  and  now  perceive 
how  the}'  have  forgotten  what  they  solemnly  promised — 
justice,  order,  peace  founded  on  the  equilibrium  and 
legitimacy  of  their  possessions — will  end  by  losing  their 
affection  and  withdrawing  their  confidence  in  their 
principles  and  their  promises." 

Those  words,  written  a  hundred  and  five  years  ago, 
might  have  been  penned  any  day  since  the  month  of 
February,   1919. 

The  leading  motive  of  the  policy  pursued  by  the 
Supreme  Council  and  embodied  in  the  Treaty  was  aptly 
described  at  the  time  as  the  systematic  protection  of 
France  against  Germany.  Hence  the  creation  of  the 
powerful  barrier  states,  Poland,  Czechoslovalsia,  Jugo- 
slavia, Greater  Rumania,  and  Greater  Greece.  French 
nationalists  pleaded  for  further  precautions  more  com- 
prehensive still.  Their  contention  was  that  France's 
economic,  strategic,  financial,  and  territorial  welfare 
being  the  cornerstone  of  the  future  European  edifice, 
e'^'ery  measure  proposed  at  the  Conference,  whether 
national  or  general,  should  be  considered  and  shaped  in 
accordance  with  that,  and  consequently  that  no  possi- 
bility should  be  accorded  to  Germany  of  rising  again  to 
a  commanding  position  because,  if  she  once  recovered  her 
ascendancy  in  any  domain  whatsoever,  Europe  would 
inevitably  be  thrust  anew  into  the  horrors  of  war.  Ter- 
ritorially, therefore,  the  dismemberment  of  Germany  was 
obligatory;  the  annexation  of  the  Saar  Valley,  together 
with  its  six  hundred  thousand  Teuton  inhabitants,  was 
necessary  to  France,  and  either  the  annexation  of  the  left 
bank  of  the  Rhine  or  its  transformation  into  a  detached 
state  to  be  occupied  and  administered  by  the  Fiench  until 

417 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

Germany  pays  the  last  farthing  of  the  indemnity.  Further, 
Austria  must  be  deprived  of  the  right  of  determining  her 
own  mode  of  existence  and  constrained  to  abandon  the 
idea  of  becoming  one  of  the  federated  states  of  the  Ger- 
man Republic,  and,  if  possible,  northern  Germany  should 
be  kept  entirely  separate  from  southern.  The  Allies 
should  divide  the  Teutons  in  order  to  sway  them.  All 
Germany's  other  frontiers  should  be  delimitated  in  a  like 
spirit.  And  at  the  same  time  the  work  of  knitting  to- 
gether the  peoples  and  nations  of  Europe  and  forming 
them  into  a  friendly  sodality  was  to  go  forward  without 
interruption. 

"How  to  promote  our  interests  in  the  Rhineland," 
wrote  M.  Maurice  Barres,^  "is  a  life-and-death  question 
for  us.  We  are  going  to  carry  to  the  Rhine  our  military 
and,  I  hope,  our  economic  frontier.  The  rest  will  follow 
in  its  own  good  time.  The  future  will  not  fail  to  secure 
for  us  the  acquiescence  of  the  population  of  the  Rhine- 
land,  who  will  live  freely  under  the  protection  of  our  arms, 
their  faces  turned  toward  Paris." 

Financially  it  was  proposed  that  the  Teutons  should  be 
forced  to  indemnify  France,  Belgium,  and  the  other  coun- 
tries for  all  the  damage  they  had  inflicted  upon  them; 
to  pay  the  entire  cost  of  the  war,  as  well  as  the  pensions 
to  widows,  orphans,  and  the  mutilated.  And  the  military 
occupation  of  their  country  should  be  maintained  until 
this  huge  debt  is  wholly  wiped  out. 

A  Nationalist  organ, ^  in  a  leading  article,  stated  with 
brevity  and  clearness  the  prevailing  view  of  Germany's 
obligations.  Here  is  a  characteristic  passage:  "She  is 
rich,  has  reserves  derived  from  many  years  of  former 
prosperity;  she  can  work  to  produce  and  repair  all  the 
evil  she  has  done,  rebuild  all  the  ruins  she  has  accumu- 


'  In  L'Echo  de  Paris,  March  2, 1919.    Cf .  The  Daily  Telegraph,  March  4th. 
2  Le  Caulois,  March  8,  1919.     Cf.  The  Daily  Telegraph,  March  loth. 

418 


SIDELIGHTS  ON  THE  TREATY 

lated,  and  restore  all  the  fortunes  she  has  destroyed,  how- 
ever irksome  the  burden."  After  analyzing  Doctor 
Helfferich's  report  published  six  years  ago,  the  article 
concluded,  "Germany  must  pay;  she  disposes  of  the 
means  because  she  is  rich;  if  she  refuses  we  must  com- 
pel her  without  hesitation  and  without  ruth." 

As  France,  whose  cities  and  towns  and  very  soil  were 
ruined,  could  not  be  asked  to  restore  these  places  at  her 
own  expense  and  tax  herself  drastically  like  her  allies, 
the  Americans  and  British,  the  prior  and  privileged  right 
to  receive  payment  on  her  share  of  the  indemnity  should 
manifestly  appertain  to  her.  Her  allies  and  associates 
should,  it  was  argued,  accordingly  waive  their  money 
claims  until  hers  were  satisfied  in  full.  Moreover,  as 
France's  future  expenditure  on  her  army  of  occupation, 
on  the  administration  of  her  colonies  and  of  the  annexed 
territories,  must  necessarily  absorb  huge  sums  for  years 
to  come,  v/hich  her  citizens  feel  they  ought  not  to  be  asked 
to  contribute,  and  as  her  internal  debt  was  already  over- 
whelming, it  is  only  meet  and  just  that  her  wealthier 
partners  should  pool  their  war  debts  with  hers  and  share 
their  financial  resources  with  her  and  all  their  other  allies. 
This,  it  was  argued,  was  an  obvious  corollary  of  the  war 
alliance.  Economically,  too,  the  Germans,  while  per- 
mitted to  resume  their  industrial  occupations  on  a  suffi- 
ciently large  scale  to  enable  them  to  earn  the  wherewithal 
to  live  and  discharge  their  financial  obligations,  should  be 
denied  free  scope  to  outstrip  France,  whose  material  pros- 
perity is  admittedly  essential  to  the  maintenance  of  gen- 
eral peace  and  the  permanence  of  the  new  ordering.  In 
this  condition,  it  is  further  contended,  our  chivalrous  ally 
was  entitled  to  special  consideration  because  of  her  low 
birth-rate,  which  is  one  of  the  mainsprings  of  her  difficul- 
ties. This  may  permanently  keep  her  population  from 
rising  above  the  level  of  forty  million,  whereas  Germany, 

28  419 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

by  the  middle  of  the  century,  will  have  reached  the  for- 
midable total  of  eighty  million,  so  that  competition  be- 
tween them  would  not  be  on  a  footing  of  equality.  Hence 
the  chances  should  be  evenly  balanced  by  the  action  of 
the  Conference,  to  be  continued  by  the  League.  Dis- 
criminating treatment  was  therefore  a  necessity.  And 
it  should  be  so  introduced  that  France  should  be  free  to 
maintain  a  protective  tariff,  of  which  she  had  sore  need 
for  her  foreign  trade,  without  causing  umbrage  to  her 
allies.  For  they  could  not  gainsay  that  her  position  de- 
served special  treatment. 

Some  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  delegates  took  other  ground, 
feeling  unable  to  countenance  the  postulate  underlying 
those  demands,  namely,  that  the  Teuton  race  was  to  be 
forever  anathema.  They  looked  far  enough  ahead  to 
make  due  allowance  for  a  future  when  conditions  in  Europe 
will  be  very  different  from  what  they  are  to-day.  The 
German  race,  they  felt,  being  numerous  and  virile,  will 
not  die  out  and  cannot  be  suppressed.  And  as  it  is  also 
enterprising  and  resourceful  it  would  be  a  mistake  to 
render  it  permanently  hostile  by  the  Allies  overstepping 
the  bounds  of  justice,  because  in  this  case  neither  national 
nor  general  interests  would  be  furthered.  You  may  hin- 
der Germany,  they  argued,  from  acquiring  the  hegemony 
of  the  world,  but  not  from  becoming  the  principal  factor 
in  European  evolution.  If  thirty  years  hence  the  Ger- 
man population  totals  eighty  million  or  more,  will  not 
their  attitude  and  their  sentiment  toward  their  neighbors 
constitute  an  all-important  element  of  European  tran- 
quillity and  will  not  the  trend  of  these  be  to  a  large  extent 
the  outcome  of  the  Allies'  policy  of  to-day?  The  present, 
therefore,  is  the  time  for  the  delegates  to  deprive  that 
sentiment  of  its  venomous,  anti-Allied  sting,  not  by  re- 
nouncing any  of  their  countries'  rights,  but  by  respecting 

those  of  others. 

420 


SIDELIGHTS  ON  THE  TREATY 

That  was  the  reasoning  of  those  who  believed  that 
national  striving  should  be  subordinated  to  the  general 
good,  and  that  the  present  time  and  its  aspirations  should 
be  considered  in  strict  relation  to  the  future  of  the  whole 
community  of  nations.  They  further  contended  that 
while  Germany  deserved  to  suffer  condignly  for  the 
heinous  crimes  of  unchaining  the  war  and  waging  it 
ruthlessly,  as  many  of  her  own  people  confessed,  she 
should  not  be  wholly  crippled  or  enthralled  in  the  hope 
that  she  would  be  rendered  thereby  impotent  forever. 
Such  hope  was  vain.  With  her  waxing  strength  her  desire 
of  vengeance  would  grow,  and  together  with  it  the  means 
of  wreaking  it.  She  might  yet  knead  Russia  into  such 
a  shape  as  would  make  that  Slav  people  a  serviceable 
instrument  of  revenge,  and  her  endeavors  might  con- 
ceivably extend  farther  than  Russia.  The  one-sided  re- 
settlement of  Europe  charged  with  explosives  of  such  in- 
calculable force  would  frustrate  the  most  elaborate  at- 
tempts to  create  not  only  a  real  league  of  nations,  but 
even  such  a  rough  approximation  toward  one  as  might 
in  time  and  under  favorable  circumstances  develop  into 
a  trustworthy  war  preventive.  They  concluded  that  a 
league  of  nations  would  be  worse  than  useless  if  trans- 
formed into  a  weapon  to  be  wielded  by  one  group  of 
nations  against  another,  or  as  an  artificial  makeshift  for 
dispensing  peoples  from  the  observance  of  natural  laws. 

At  the  same  time  all  the  governments  of  the  Allies 
were  sincere  and  unanimous  in  their  desire  to  do  every- 
thing possible  to  show  their  appreciation  of  France's 
heroism,  to  recognize  the  vastness  of  her  sacrifices,  and 
to  pay  their  debt  of  gratitude  for  her  services  to  humanity. 
All  were  actuated  by  a  resolve  to  contribute  in  the  measure 
of  the  possible  to  compensate  her  for  such  losses  as  were 
still  reparable  and  to  safeguard  her  against  the  recurrence 
of  the  ordeal  from  which  she  had  escaped  terribly  scathed. 

421 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

The  only  limits  they  admitted  to  this  work  of  reparation 
were  furnished  by  the  aim  itself  and  by  the  means  of 
attaining  it.  Thus  Messrs.  Wilson  and  Lloyd  George 
held  that  to  incorporate  in  renovated  France  millions  or 
even  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Germans  would  be  to 
introduce  into  the  political  organism  the  germs  of  fell 
disease,  and  on  this  ground  they  firmly  refused  to  sanction 
the  Rhine  frontier,  which  the  French  were  thus  obliged 
to  relinquish.  The  French  delegates  themselves  admitted 
that  if  granted  it  could  not  be  held  without  a  powerful 
body  of  international  troops  ever  at  the  beck  and  call  of 
the  Republic,  vigilantly  keeping  watch  and  ward  on  the 
banks  of  the  Rhine  and  with  no  reasonable  prospect  of 
a  term  to  this  servitude.  For  the  real  ground  of  this  de- 
pendence upon  foreign  forces  is  the  disproportion  between 
the  populations  of  Germany  and  France  and  between 
the  resources  of  the  two  nations.  The  ratio  of  the  former 
is  at  present  about  six  to  four  and  it  is  growing  perceptibly 
toward  seven  to  four.  The  organizing  capacity  in  com- 
merce and  industry  is  said  to  be  even  greater.  If,  there- 
fore, France  cannot  stand  alone  to-day,  still  less  could 
she  stand  alone  in  ten  or  fifteen  years,  and  the  necessity 
of  protecting  her  against  aggression,  assuming  that  the 
German  people  does  not  become  reconciled  to  its  status 
of  forced  inferiority,  would  be  more  urgent  and  less  prac- 
ticable with  the  lapse  of  time.  For,  as  we  saw,  it  is  largely 
a  question  of  the  birth-rate.  And  as  neither  the  British 
nor  the  American  people,  deeply  though  they  are  attached 
to  their  gallant  comrades  in  anns,  would  consent  to  this 
arrangement,  which  to  them  would  be  a  burden  and  to 
the  Germans  a  standing  provocation,  their  representatives 
were  forced  to  the  conclusion  that  it  would  be  the  height 
of  folly  to  do  aught  that  would  give  the  Teutons  a  con- 
venient handle  for  a  war  of  revenge.  Let  there  be  no 
annexation  of  territory,   tliey  said,   no  incorporation  of 

422 


SIDELIGHTS  ON  THE  TREATY 

unwilling  German  citizens.  The  Americans  further  argtied 
that  an  indefinite  occupation  of  Gennan  territory  by  a 
large  body  of  international  troops  would  be  a  direct  en- 
couragement to  militarism. 

The  indemnities  for  which  the  French  yearned,  and  on 
which  their  responsible  financiers  counted,  were  large. 
The  figures  employed  were  astronomical.  Hundreds  of 
milliards  of  francs  were  operated  with  by  eminent  pub- 
licists in  an  ofThand  manner  that  astonished  the  survivor 
of  the  expiring  budgetary  epoch  and  rejoiced  the  hearts 
of  the  Western  taxpayers.  For  it  was  not  only  journalists 
who  wrote  as  though  a  stream  of  wealth  were  to  be 
turned  into  these  countries  to  fertilize  industry  and  com- 
merce there  and  enable  them  to  keep  well  ahead  of  their 
pushing  competitors.  Responsible  Ministers  likewise  hall- 
marked these  forecasts  with  their  approval.  Before  the 
fortune  of  war  had  decided  for  the  Allies,  the  finances  of 
France  had  sorely  embarrassed  the  Minister,  M.  Klotz,  of 
whom  his  chief,  M.  Clemenceau,  is  reported  to  have  said: 
*  *  He  is  the  onl}^  Israelite  I  have  ever  known  who  is  out  of 
his  element  when  dealing  with  money  matters. ' '  Before  the 
armistice,  M.  Klotz,  when  talking  of  the  complex  problem 
and  sketching  the  outlook,  exclaimed :  "  If  we  win  the  war, 
I  undertake  to  make  both  ends  meet,  far  though  they  now 
seem  apart.  For  I  will  make  the  Germans  pay  the  entire 
cost  of  the  war."  After  the  armistice  he  repeated  his 
promise  and  undertook  not  to  levy  fresh  taxation. 

Thus,  despite  fitful  gleams  of  idealism,  the  atmosphere  of 
the  Paris  Conclave  grew  heavy  with  interests,  passions, 
and  ambitions.  Only  people  in  blinkers  could  miss  the 
fact  that  the  elastic  formulas  launched  and  interpreted 
by  President  Wilson  were  being  stretched  to  the  snapping- 
point  so  as  to  cover  two  mutually  incompatible  policies. 
The  chasm  between  his  original  prospects  and  those  of 
his  foreign  associates  they  both  conscientiously  endeavored 

423 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

to  ignore,  and  after  a  time  they  hit  upon  a  tertium  quid 
between  territorial  equiHbrium  and  a  sterilized  league 
tempered  by  the  Monroe  Doctrine  and  a  military  compact. 
This  composite  resultant  carried  with  it  the  concentrated 
evils  of  one  of  these  systems  and  was  deprived  of  its  re- 
deeming features  by  the  other.  At  a  conjuncture  in  the 
world's  affairs  which  postulated  internationalism  of  the 
loftiest  kind,  the  delegates  increased  and  multiplied  na- 
tions and  states  which  they  deprived  of  sovereignty  and 
yoked  to  the  first-class  races.  National  ambitions  took 
precedence  of  larger  interests;  racial  hatred  was  raised 
to  its  highest  power.  In  a  word,  the  world's  state  syctem 
was  so  oddly  pieced  together  that  only  economic  exhaus- 
tion followed  by  a  speedy  return  to  militarism  could  insure 
for  it  a  moderate  duration. 

Territorial  self-sufficiency,  military  strength,  and  ad- 
vantageous alliances  were  accordingly  looked  to  as  the 
mainstays  of  the  new  ordering,  even  by  those  who  paid 
lip  tribute  to  the  Wilsonian  ideal.  The  ideal  itself  under- 
went a  disfiguring  change  in  the  process  of  incarnation. 
The  Italians  asked  how  the  Monroe  Doctrine  could  be 
reconciled  with  the  charter  of  the  League  of  Nations, 
seeing  that  the  League  would  be  authorized  to  intervene 
in  the  domestic  affairs  of  other  member-states,  and  if 
necessary  to  despatch  troops  to  keep  Germany,  Italy, 
and  Poland  in  order;  whereas  if  the  United  States  were 
guilty  of  tyrannical  aggression  against  Brazil,  the  Argen- 
tine Republic,  or  Mexico,  the  League,  paralyzed  by  that 
Doctrine,  must  look  on  inactive.  The  Germans,  alleging 
capital  defects  in  the  Wilsonian  Covenant,  which  was 
adjusted  primarily  to  the  Allies'  designs,  went  to  Paris 
prepared  with  a  substitute  which,  it  must  in  fairness  be 
admitted,  was  considerably  superior  to  that  of  their 
adversaries,  and  incidentally  fraught  with  greater  promise 

to  themselves. 

424 


SIDELIGHTS  ON  THE  TREATY 

It  is  superfluous  to  add  that  the  continental  view  pre- 
vailed, but  Mr.  Wilson  imagined  that,  while  abandoning 
his  principles  in  favor  of  Britain,  France,  and  Bulgaria, 
he  could  readjust  the  balance  by  applying  them  with 
rigor  to  Italy  and  exaggerating  them  when  dealing  with 
Greece.  He  afterward  communicated  his  reasons  for  this 
belief  in  a  message  published  in  Washington.^  The 
alliance — he  was  understood  to  have  been  opposed  to  all 
partial  alliances  on  principle- — which  guarantees  military 
succor  to  France,  he  had  vsigned,  he  said,  in  gratitude  to 
that  country,  for  he  seriously  doubted  whether  the 
American  Republic  could  have  won  its  freedom  against 
Britain's  opposition  without  the  gallant  and  friendly 
aid  of  France.  "We  recently  had  the  privilege  of  assist- 
ing in  driving  enemies,  who  also  were  enemies  of  the 
world,  from  her  soil,  but  that  does  not  pay  our  debt  to 
her.  Nothing  can  pay  such  a  debt."  His  critics  retorted 
that  that  is  a  sentimental  reason  which  might  with  equal 
force  have  been  urged  by  France  and  Britain  in  justifica- 
tion of  their  promises  to  Italy  and  Rumania,  yet  was 
rejected  as  irrelevant  by  Mr.  Wilson  in  the  name  of  a 
higher  principle. 

The  President  of  the  United  States,  it  was  further  urged, 
is  a  historian,  and  history  tells  him  that  the  help  given 
to  his  country  against  England  neither  came  from  the 
French  people  nor  was  actuated  by  sympathy  for  the 
American  cause.  It  was  the  vindictive  act  of  one  of 
those  kings  whose  functions  Mr.  W^ilson  is  endeavoring 
to  abolish.  The  monarch  who  helped  the  Americans 
was  merely  utilizing  a  favorable  opportunity  for  depriv- 
ing with  a  minimum  of  effort  his  adversary  of  lucrative 
possessions.  Moreover,  the  debt  which  nothing  can  pay 
was  already  due  when  in  the  years  191 4-1 6  France 
was  in  imminent  danger  of  being  crushed  by  a  ruthless 

1  Cf.  The  Chicago  Tribune  (Paris  edition),  August  21,  1919. 

425 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

enemy.  But  at  that  time  Mr.  Wilson  owed  his  re-election 
largely  to  his  refusal  to  extricate  her  from  that  peril. 
Instead  of  calling  to  mind  the  debt  that  can  never  be 
repaid  he  merely  announced  that  he  could  not  understand 
what  the  belligerents  were  fighting  for  and  that  in  any 
case  France's  grateful  debtor  was  too  proud  to  fight. 
The  motive  which  finally  brought  the  United  States  into 
the  World  War  may  be  the  noblest  that  ever  yet  actuated 
any  state,  but  no  student  of  history  will  allow  that  Mr. 
Wilson  has  correctly  described  it. 

The  fact  is  that  the  French  delegates  and  their  support- 
ers were  consistent  and,  except  in  their  demand  for  the 
Rhine  frontier,  unbending.  They  drew  up  a  program  and 
saw  that  it  was  substantially  carried  out.  They  declared 
themselves  quite  ready  to  accept  Mr.  Wilson's  project, 
but  only  on  condition  that  their  own  was  also  realized, 
heedless  of  the  incompatibility  of  the  two.  And  Mr. 
Wilson  felt  constrained  to  make  their  position  his  own, 
otherwise  he  could  not  have  obtained  the  Covenant  he 
yearned  for.  And  yet  he  must  have  known  that  ac- 
quiescence in  the  demands  put  forward  by  M.  Clemenceau 
would  lower  the  practical  value  of  his  Covenant  to  that 
of  a  sheet  of  paper. 

A  blunt  American  journal,  commenting  on  the  handi- 
work of  the  Conference,  gave  utterance  to  views  which 
while  making  no  pretense  to  courtly  phraseology  are 
symptomatic  of  the  way  in  which  the  average  man  thought 
and  spoke  of  the  Covenant  which  emanated  from  the 
Supreme  Council.  "We  are  convinced,"  it  said,  "that 
the  elder  statesmen  of  Europe,  typified  by  Clemenceau, 
consider  it  a  hoax.  Clemenceau  never  before  was  so 
extremely  bored  by  anything  in  his  life  as  he  was  by  the 
necessity  of  making  a  pious  pretense  in  the  Covenant 
when  what  he  wanted  was  the  assurance  of  the  Triple 
Alliance.     He  got  that  assurance,  which,  along  Mdth  the 

426 


SIDELIGHTS  ON  THE  TREATY 

French  watch  on  the  Rhine,  the  French  in  the  Saar 
Valley  and  in  Africa,  with  German  money  going  into 
French  coffers,  makes  him  tolerably  indulgent  of  the 
altruistic  rhetoricians. 

"The  English,  the  intelligent  English,  we  know  have 
their  tongues  in  their  cheeks.  The  Italians  are  petulant 
imperialists,  and  Japan  doesn't  care  what  happens  to  the 
League  so  long  as  Japan  says  what  shall  happen  in  Asia."  ' 

Peace  was  at  last  signed,  not  on  the  basis  of  the  Fourteen 
Points  nor  yet  entirely  on  the  lines  of  territorial  equilib- 
rium, but  on  those  of  a  compromise  which,  missing  the 
advantages  of  each,  combined  many  of  the  evils  of  both 
and  of  others  which  were  generated  by  their  conjunction, 
and  laid  the  foundations  of  the  new  state  fabric  on  quick- 
sands. That  was  at  bottom  the  view  to  which  Italy, 
Rumania,  and  Greece  gave  utterance  when  complaining 
that  their  claims  were  being  dealt  with  on  the  principle 
of  self-denial,  whereas  those  of  France  had  been  settled 
on  the  traditional  basis  of  territorial  guaranties  and 
military  alliances.  Further,  the  Treaty  failed  to  lay  an 
ax  to  the  roots  of  war,  did,  in  fact,  increase  their  number 
while  purporting  to  destroy  them.  Far  from  that :  germs 
of  future  conflicts  not  only  between  the  late  belligerents, 
but  also  between  the  recent  Allies,  were  plentifully  scat- 
tered and  may  sprout  up  in  the  fullness  of  time. 

The  Paris  press  expressed  its  satisfaction  with  France's 

share  of  the  fruits  of  victory.     For  the  provisions  of  the 

Treaty  went  as  far  as  any  merely  political  arrangement 

could   go   to   check    the   natural   inequality,    numerical, 

economical,     industrial,    and     financial,     between     the 

Teuton   and    French    peoples.     To   many   this  problem 

seemed  wholly  insoluble,   because  its  solution  involved 

a  suspension  or  a  corrective  of  a  law  of  nature.     Take 

the  birth-rate  in  France,  for  example.    Before  the  war  it 

1  Cf.  The  Chicago  Tribune  (Paris  edition),  Augtist  23,  19 19. 

427 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

had  long  been  declining  at  a  rate  which  alarmed  thought- 
ful French  patriots.  And,  according  to  official  statistics, 
it  is  falling  off  still  more  rapidly  to-day,  whereas  the  in- 
crease in  other  countries  is  greater  than  ever  before.^ 
Thus,  whereas  in  the  year  191 1  there  were  73,599  births 
in  the  Seine  Department,  there  were  only  47,480  in  19 18. 
Wet  nurses,  too,  are  disappearing.  Of  these,  in  the  year 
1 91 1,  in  the  same  territory  there  were  1,363,  but  in  1918 
only  65.  The  mortality  among  foundlings  rose  from  5 
per  cent,  before  the  war  to  40  per  cent,  in  the  year  1918.^ 
M.  Bertillon  calculates  that  for  France  to  increase  merely 
at  the  same  rate  as  other  nations — not  to  recover  the 
place  among  them  which  she  has  already  lost,  but  only 
to  keep  her  present  one — she  needs  five  hundred  thou- 
sand more  births  than  are  registered  at  present.  A  statis- 
tical table  which  he  drew  up  of  the  birth-rate  of  four 
European  nations  during  five  decades,  beginning  with  the 
year  1861,  is  unpleasant  reading^  for  the  friends  of  that 
heroic  and  artistic  people.  France,  containing  in  round 
numbers  40,000,000  inhabitants,  ought  to  increase  an- 
nually by  500,000.  Before  the  war  the  total  number  of 
births  in  Germany  was  computed  at  one  million  nine 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand,  but  hardly  more  than  one 
million  of  the  children  born  were  viable.^  The  gen- 
eral conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  these  figures  and 
from  the  circumstances  that  the  falling  off  in  the  French 
population   still   goes   on   unchecked,   is   disquieting   for 

^  Report  of  Dr.  Jacques  Bertillon.     Cf.  L' Information,  January  20,  1919. 
2  Cf.  Le  Matin,  August  13,  1919. 

'  Excess  of  births  over  deaths   (yearly  average). — Cf.  U Information, 
January  20,   1919: 


Germany 

Great  Britain 

Italy 

France 

1861-70             40^,333 

365.499 

183,196 

93,515 

1871-80             511,034 

431,436 

191,538 

64,063 

1881-90             551,308 

442,112 

307,082 

66,982 

1891-1900         730,265 

430,000 

339,409 

23,961 

1901-10             866,338 

484,822 

369,959 

46,524 

•ofessor  L.  Marchand. 

Cf.  La  Democratic  Nouvelle, 

April  26,  1919, 

428 

SIDELIGHTS  ON  THE  TREATY 

those  who  desire  to  see  the  French  race  continue  to  play 
the  leading  part  in  continental  Europe.  One  of  the 
shrewdest  observers  in  contemporary  Germany — him- 
self a  distinguished  Semite — commented  on  this  decisive 
fact  as  follows:  ^  "Within  ten  years  Germany  will  con- 
tain seventy  million  inhabitants,  and  in  the  torrent  of 
her  fecundity  will  drown  anemic  and  exhausted  France. 
.  .  .  The  French  nation  is  dying  of  exhaustion.  There  is 
no  reason,  however,  for  the  world  to  get  alarmed  .  .  . 
for  before  the  French  will  have  vanished  from  the  earth, 
other  races,  virile  and  healthy,  will  have  come  to  their 
count  y  to  take  their  place."  That  is  what  is  actually 
happening,  and  it  is  impressively  borne  in  upon  the  visitor 
to  various  French  cities  by  the  vast  number  of  exotic 
names  over  houses  of  business  and  in  other  ways. 

With  this  formidable  obstacle,  then,  the  three  members 
of  the  Supreme  Council  strenuously  coped  by  exercising 
to  the  fullest  extent  the  power  conferred  on  the  victors 
over  the  vanquished.  And  the  result  of  their  combina- 
tions challenged  and  received  the  unstinted  approval  of 
all  those  numerous  enemies  of  Teutondom  who  believe 
the  Germans  to  be  incapable  of  contributing  materially 
to  human  progress,  unless  they  are  kept  in  leading- 
strings  by  one  of  the  superior  races.  The  Treaty  repre- 
sents the  potential  realization  of  France's  dream,  achieved 
vserni-miraculously  by  the  very  statesmen  on  whom  the 
Teutons  were  relying  to  dispel  it.  Defeated,  disarmed, 
incapable  of  military  resistance,  and  devoid  of  friends, 
Germany  thought  she  could  discern  her  sheet-anchor  of 
salvation  in  the  Wilsonian  gospel,  and  it  was  the  preacher 
of  this  gospel  himself  who  implicitly  characterized  her 
salvation  as  more  difficult  than  the  passage  of  a  camel 

1  Dr.  Walter  Ratlienau,  in  a  book  entitled  The  Death  of  France.  I  have 
not  been  able  to  procure  a  copy  of  this  book.  The  extracts  given  above 
are  taken  from  a  statement  published  by  M.  Brudenne  in  the  Matin  of 
February  i6,  1919. 

429 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

through  the  eye  of  a  needle.  The  crimes  perpetrated  by 
the  Teutons  were  unquestionably  heinous  beyond  words, 
and  no  punishment  permitted  by  the  human  conscience 
is  too  drastic  to  atone  for  them.  How  long  this  punish- 
ment should  endure,  whether  it  should  be  inflicted  on 
the  entire  people  as  well  as  on  their  leaders,  and  what 
form  should  be  given  to  it,  were  among  the  questions 
confronting  the  Secret  Council,  and  they  implicitly  an- 
swered them  in  the  way  we  have  seen. 

People  who  consider  the  answer  adequate  and  justified 
give  as  their  reason  that  it  presupposes  and  attains  a 
single  object — the  efficacious  protection  of  France  as  the 
sentinel  of  civilization  against  an  incorrigible  arch- 
enemy. And  in  this  they  may  be  right.  But  if  you  en- 
large the  problem  till  it  covers  the  moral  fellowship  of 
nations,  and  if  you  postulate  that  as  a  safeguard  of  future 
peace  and  neighborliness  in  the  world,  then  the  outcome 
of  the  Treaty  takes  on  a  different  coloring.  Between 
France  and  Germany  it  creates  a  sea  of  bitterness  which 
no  rapturous  exultation  over  the  new  ethical  ordering 
can  sweeten.  The  latter  nation  is  assumed  to  be  smitten 
with  a  fell  moral  disease,  to  which,  however,  the  physi- 
cians of  the  Conference  have  applied  no  moral  remedy, 
but  only  measures  of  coercion,  mostly  powerful  irritants. 
The  reformed  state  of  Europe  is  consequently  a  state  of 
latent  war  between  two  groups  of  nations,  of  which  one 
is  temporarily  prostrate  and  both  are  naively  exhorted 
to  join  hands  and  play  a  helpful  part  in  an  idyllic  society 
of  nations.  This  expectation  is  the  deHght  of  cynics 
and  the  despair  of  those  serious  reformers  who  are  not 
interested  politicians.  Heretofore  the  most  inveterate 
optimists  in  politics  were  the  revolutionaries.  But  they 
have  since  been  outdone  by  the  Paris  world-reformers, 
who  tempt  Providence  by  calling  on  it  to  accomplish 
by  a  miracle  an  object  which  they  have  striven  hard  and 

430 


SIDELIGHTS  ON  THE  TREATY 

successfully  to  render  impossible  by  the  ordinary  opera- 
tion of  cause  and  effect.  Thus  the  Covenant  mars  the 
Treaty,  and  the  Treaty  the  Covenant. 

In  Weimar  and  Berlin  the  Treaty  was  termed  the  death- 
sentence  of  Germany,  not  only  as  an  empire,  but  as  an 
independent  political  community.  Henceforward  her 
economic  efforts,  beyond  a  certain  limit,  will  be  struck  with 
barrenness,  her  industry  will  be  hindered  from  outstrip- 
ping or  overtaking  that  of  the  neighboring  countries, 
and  her  population  will  be  indirectly  kept  within  definite 
bounds.  For,  instead  of  exporting  manufactures,  she 
will  be  obliged  to  export  human  beings,  whose  intellect 
and  skill  will  be  utilized  by  such  rivals  of  her  own  race 
as  vouchsafe  to  admit  them.  Already  before  the  Confer- 
ence was  over  they  began  to  emigrate  eastward.  And 
those  who  remain  at  home  will  not  be  masters  in  their  own 
house,  for  the  doors  will  be  open  to  various  foreign 
commissions. 

The  assumption  upon  which  the  Treaty-framers  pro- 
ceeded is  that  the  abominations  committed  by  the  Ger- 
man military  and  civil  authorities  were  constructively 
the  work  of  the  entire  nation,  for  whose  reformation 
within  a  measurable  period  hope  is  vain.  This  view  pre- 
dominated among  the  ruling  classes  of  the  Entente 
peoples  with  few  exceptions.  If  it  be  correct,  it  seems 
superfluous  to  constrain  the  enemy  to  enter  the  league  of 
law-abiding  nations,  which  is  to  be  cemented  only  by 
voluntary  adherence  and  by  genuine  attachment  to  lib- 
erty, right,  and  justice.  Hence  the  Covenant,  by  being 
inserted  in  the  Peace  Treaty,  necessarily  lost  its  value 
as  an  eirenicon,  and  became  subsequent  to  that  instru- 
ment, and  seems  likely  to  be  used  as  an  anti-German 
safeguard.  But  even  then  its  efficacy  is  doubtful,  and 
manifestly  so;  otherwise  the  reformers,  who  at  the  start 
set  out  to  abolish  alliances  as  recognized  causes  of  war, 

431 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

would  not  have  ended  by  setting  up  a  new  Triple  Alliance, 
which  involves  military,  naval,  and  aerial  establishments, 
and  the  corresponding  financial  burdens  inseparable  from 
these.  An  alliance  of  this  character,  whatever  one  may 
think  of  its  economic  and  financial  aspects,  runs  counter 
to  the  spirit  of  the  Covenant,  but  was  an  obvious  corol- 
lary of  the  Allies'  attitude  as  mirrored  in  the  Treaty. 
And  the  spirit  of  the  Treaty  destroys  the  letter  of  the 
Covenant.  For  the  world  is  there  implicitly  divided 
into  two  camps — the  friends  and  the  enemies  of  liberty, 
right,  and  justice;  and  the  main  functions  of  the  League 
as  narrowed  by  the  Treaty  will  be  to  hinder  or  defeat  the 
machinations  of  the  enemies.  Moreover,  the  deliberate 
concessions  made  by  the  Conference  to  such  agencies  of 
the  old  ordering  as  the  grouping  of  two  or  three  Powers 
into  defensive  alliances  bids  fair  to  be  extended  in  time. 
For  the  stress  of  circumstance  is  stronger  than  the  will  of 
man.    At  this  rate  the  last  state  may  be  worse  than  the  first. 

The  world  situation,  thus  formally  modified,  remained 
essentially  unchanged,  and  will  so  endure  until  other  forces 
are  released.  The  League  of  Nations  forfeited  its  ideal 
character  under  the  pressure  of  national  interests,  and 
became  a  coalition  of  victors  against  the  vanquished. 
By  the  insertion  of  the  Covenant  in  the  Treaty  the  former 
became  a  means  for  the  execution  of  the  latter.  For  even 
Mr.  Wilson,  faced  with  realities  and  called  to  practical 
counsel,  affectionately  dismissed  the  high-souled  specula- 
tive projects  in  which  he  delighted  during  his  hours  of 
contemplation.  Although  the  German  delegates  signed 
the  Treaty,  no  one  can  honestly  say  that  he  expects  them 
to  observe  it  longer  than  constraint  presses,  however 
solemn  the  obligations  imposed. 

In  the  press  organ  of  the  most  numerous  and  powerful 
political  party  in  Germany  one  might  read  in  an  article 
on  tlie  Germans  in  Bohemia  annexed  by  Czechoslovakia: 

432 


SIDELIGHTS  ON  THE  TREATY 

"Assuredly  their  destiny  will  not  be  determined  for  all 
time  by  the  Versailles  peace  of  violence.  It  behooves 
the  German  nation  to  cherish  its  affection  for  its  op- 
pressed brethren,  even  though  it  be  powerless  to  succor 
them  immediately.  What  then  can  it  do?  Italy  has  given 
it  a  marvelous  lesson  in  the  policy  of  irredentism,  which 
she  pursued  in  respect  of  the  Trentino  and  Trieste."  ^ 

With  the  Treaty  as  it  stands,  nationalist  France  of  this 
generation  has  reason  to  be  satisfied.  One  of  its  framers, 
himself  a  shrewd  business  man  and  politician,  publicly 
set  forth  the  grounds  for  this  satisfaction.-  Alsace  and 
Lorraine  reunited  to  the  metropolis,  he  explained,  will 
assist  France  materially  with  an  industrious  population 
and  enormous  resources  in  the  shape  of  mineral  wealth 
and  a  fruitful  soil.  Germany's  former  colonics,  Kamerun 
and  Togoland,  are  become  French,  and  will  doubtless 
offer  a  vast  and  attractive  field  for  the  expansion  and 
prosperity  of  the  French  population.  Morocco,  freed 
from  German  enterprise,  can  henceforth  be  developed 
by  the  French  population  alone  and  without  let  or  hin- 
drance, for  the  benefit  of  the  natives  and  in  the  true  sense 
of  Mr.  Wilson's  humanitarian  ordinances.  The  potash 
deposits,  to  which  German  agriculture  largely  owed  its 
prosperity,  will  henceforward  be  utilized  in  the  service 
of  French  agriculture.  "In  iron  ore  the  wealth  of  France 
is  doubled,  and  her  productive  capacity  as  regards  pig- 
iron  and  steel  immensely  increased.  Her  production  of 
textiles  is  greater  than  before  the  war  by  about  a  third."  ^ 
In  a  word,  a  vast  area  of  the  planet  inhabited  by  various 
peoples  will  look  to  the  French  people  for  everything 
that  makes  their  collective  life  worth  living. 

1  Germama,  August  ii,  1919.     Cf.  Le  Temps,  September  9,  1919. 

-  M.  Andre  Tardieu  in  a  speech  delivered  on  August  17,  1919-  Cf.  Paris 
newspapers  of  following  two  days,  and  in  particular  New  York  Herald, 
August  19th. 

=  Cf.  speech  delivered  by  M.  Andre  Tardieu  on  August  17,  1919. 

433 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

The  sole  arrangement  which  for  a  time  caused  heart- 
burnings in  France  was  that  respecting  the  sums  of  money 
which  Germany  should  have  been  made  to  pay  to  her 
victorious  enemies.  For  the  opinions  on  that  subject 
held  by  the  average  man,  and  connived  at  or  approved 
by  the  authorities,  were  wholly  fantastic,  just  as  were 
some  of  the  expectations  of  other  Allied  states.  The 
French  people  differ  from  their  neighbors  in  many  respects 
— and  in  a  marked  way  in  money  matters.  They  will 
sacrifice  their  lives  rather  than  their  substance.  They 
will  leave  a  national  debt  for  their  children  and  their 
children's  children,  instead  of  making  a  resolute  effort  • 
to  wipe  it  out  or  lessen  it  by  amortization.  In  this  respect 
the  British,  the  Americans,  and  also  the  Germans  differ 
from  them.  These  peoples  tax  themselves  freely,  create 
sinking  funds,  and  make  heavy  sacrifices  to  pay  off  their 
money  obligations.  This  habit  is  ingrained.  The  con- 
trary system  is  become  second  nature  to  the  French, 
and  one  cannot  change  a  nation's  habits  overnight.  The 
education  of  the  people  might,  however,  have  been 
undertaken  during  the  war  with  considerable  chances 
of  satisfactory  results.  The  government  might  have 
preached  the  necessity  of  relinquishing  a  percentage  of 
the  war  gains  to  the  state.  It  was  done  in  Britain  and 
Germany.  The  amount  of  money  earned  by  individuals 
during  the  hostilities  was  enormous.  A  considerable  per- 
centage of  it  should  have  been  requisitioned  by  the 
state,  in  view  of  the  peace  requirements  and  of  the  huge 
indebtedness  which  victory  or  defeat  must  inevitably 
bring  in  its  train.  But  no  Minister  had  the  courage  nec- 
essary to  brave  the  multitude  and  risk  his  share  of  popu- 
larity or  tolerance.  And  so  things  were  allowed  to  slide. 
The  people  were  assured  that  victory  would  recompense 
their  efforts,  not  only  by  positive  territorial  gains,  but 
by  relieving  them  of  their  new  financial  obligations. 

434 


SIDELIGHTS  ON  THE  TREATY 

That  was  a  sinister  mistake.  The  truth  is  that  the 
French  nation,  if  defeated,  would  have  paid  any  sum 
demanded.  That  was  almost  an  axiom.  It  would  and 
could  have  expected  no  ruth.  But,  victorious,  it  looked 
to  the  enemy  for  the  means  of  refunding  the  cost  of  the 
war.  The  Finance  Minister — M.  Klotz — often  declared 
to  private  individuals  that  if  the  Allies  were  victorious 
he  would  have  all  the  new  national  debt  wiped  out  by 
the  enemy,  and  he  assured  the  nation  that  milliards 
enough  would  be  extracted  from  Germany  to  balance 
the  credit  and  debit  accounts  of  the  Republic.  And  the 
people  naturally  believed  its  professional  expert.  Thus 
it  became  a  dogma  that  the  Teuton  state  was  to  provide 
all  the  cost  of  the  war.  In  that  illusion  the  nation  lived 
and  worked  and  spent  money  freely,  nay,  wasted  it  woe- 
fully. 

And  yet  M.  Klotz  should  have  known  better.  For  he 
was  supplied  with  definite  data  to  go  upon.  In  October, 
1 91 8,  the  French  government,  in  doubt  about  the  full 
significance  of  that  one  of  Mr.  Wilson's  Fourteen  Points 
which  dealt  with  reparations,  asked  officially  for  explana- 
tions, and  received  from  Mr.  Lansing  the  answer  by 
telegraph  that  it  involved  the  making  good  by  the  enemy 
of  all  losses  inflicted  directly  and  lawlessly  upon  civilians, 
but  none  other.  That  surely  was  a  plain  answer  and  a 
just  principle.  But,  in  accordance  with  the  practice  of 
secrecy  in  vogue  among  Allied  European  governments, 
the  nation  was  not  informed  of  these  restrictive  condi- 
tions, but  was  allowed  to  hug  dangerous  delusions. 

But  the  Ministers  knew  them,  and  M.  Klotz  was  a 
Minister.  Not  onl}^  however,  did  he  not  reveal  what  he 
knew,  but  he  behaved  as  though  his  information  was  of 
a  directly  contrary-  tenor,  and  he  also  stated  that  Germany 
must  also  refund  the  war  indemnities  of  1870,  capitalized 
down  to  November,  191 8,  and  he  set  down  the  sum  at 

29  435 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

fifty  milliards  of  francs.  This  procedure  was  not  what 
reasonably  might  have  been  expected  from  the  leader  of 
a  heroic  nation  stout-hearted  enough  to  face  unpleasant 
facts.  Some  of  the  leading  spirits  in  the  countr^^  despite 
the  intensity  of  their  feelings  toward  Germany,  disap- 
proved this  kind  of  bookkeeping,  but  M.  Klotz  did  not 
relinquish  his  method  of  keeping  accounts.  He  drew  up 
a  bill  against  the  Teutons  for  one  thousand  and  eighty-six 
milliards  of  francs. 

The  Germans  at  the  Conference  maintained  that  if  the 
wealth  of  their  nation  were  realized  and  liquid,  it  would 
amount  at  most  to  four  hundred  milliards,  but  that  to 
realize  it  would  involve  the  stripping  of  the  population  of 
everything — of  its  forests,  its  mines,  its  railways,  its  fac- 
tories, its  cattle,  its  houses,  its  furniture,  and  its  ready 
money.  They  further  pleaded  that  the  territorial  clauses 
of  the  Treaty  deprived  them  of  important  resources, 
which  would  reduce  their  solvency  to  a  greater  degree 
than  the  Allies  realized.  These  clauses  dispossessed  the 
nation  of  21  per  cent,  of  the  total  crops  of  cereals  and 
potatoes.  A  further  falling  off  in  the  quantities  of  food 
produced  would  result  from  the  restrictions  on  the  im- 
portation of  raw  materials  for  the  manufacture  of  fertil- 
izers. Of  her  coal,  Germany  was  forfeiting  about  one- 
third;  three-fourths  of  her  iron  ore  was  also  being  taken 
away  from  her;  her  total  zinc  production  would  be  cut 
down  by  over  three-fifths.  Add  to  this  the  enormous 
shortage  of  tonnage,  machinery,  and  man-power,  the  total 
loss  of  her  colonies,  the  shrinkage  of  available  raw  stuffs, 
and  the  depreciation  of  the  mark. 

At  the  Conference  the  Americans  maintained  their 
ground.  Invoking  the  principle  laid  down  by  Mr.  Wil- 
son and  clearly  formulated  by  Mr.  Lansing,  they  insisted 
that  reparations  should  be  claimed  only  for  damage  done 
to  civilians  directly  and  lawlessly.    After  a  good  deal  of 

436 


SIDELIGHTS  ON    11  IE  TREATY 

fencing,  rendered  necessary'  by  the  pledges  given  by 
European  statesmen  to  their  electors,  it  was  decided 
that  the  criteria  provided  by  that  principle  should  be 
applied.  But  even  with  that  limitation  the  sums  claimed 
were  huge.  It  was  alleged  by  the  Germans  that  some  of 
the  demands  were  for  amounts  that  exceeded  the  total 
national  wealth  of  the  country  filing  the  claim.  And  as 
no  formula  could  be  devised  that  would  satisfy  all  the 
claimants,  it  was  resolved  in  principle  that,  although 
Germany  should  be  obliged  to  make  good  only  certain 
classes  of  losses,  the  Conference  would  set  no  limits  to 
the  sums  for  which  she  would  thus  be  liable. 

At  this  juncture  M.  Loucheur  suggested  that  a  minimum 
sum  should  be  demanded  of  the  enemy,  leaving  the  de- 
tails to  be  settled  by  a  commission.  And  this  was  the  so- 
lution which  was  finally  adopted.^  It  was  received  with 
protests  and  lamentations,  which,  however,  soon  made 
place  for  self-congratulations,  official  and  private. 

The  French  Minister  of  Finances,  for  example,  drew  a 
bright  picture  in  the  Chamber  of  the  financial  side  of  the 
Treaty,  so  far  as  it  affected  his  country:  "Within  two 
years,"  he  announced,  "independently  of  the  railway 
rolling  stock,  of  agricultural  materials  and  restitutions, 
we  receive  a  part,  still  to  be  fixed,  of  the  payment  of 
twenty  milliards  of  marks  in  gold;  another  share,  also  to 
be  determined,  of  an  emission  of  bonds  amounting  to 
forty  milliard  gold  marks,  bearing  interest  at  the  rate  of 
2  per  cent. ;  a  third  part,  to  be  fixed,  of  German  shipping 
and  dyes ;  seven  million  tons  of  coal  annually  for  a  period 
of  ten  years,  followed  by  diminishing  quantities  during 
the  following  years;  the  repayment  of  the  expenses  of 
occupation;  the  right  of  taking  over  a  part  of  Germany's 
interests  in  Russia,  in  particular  that  of  obtaining  the 

'  On  this  subject  of  reparations  the  Journal  de  Geneve  pubHshed  several 
interesting  articles  at  various  times,  as,  for  example,  on  May  15,  191 9. 

437 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

payment  of  pre-war  debts  at  the  pre-war  rate  of  exchange, 
likewise  the  maintenance  of  such  contracts  as  we  may 
desire  to  maintain  in  force  and  the  return  of  Alsace- 
Lorraine  free  from  all  incumbrances.  Nor  is  that  all. 
In  Morocco  we  have  the  right  to  liquidate  German  prop- 
erty, to  transfer  the  shares  that  represent  Germany's 
interests  in  the  Bank  of  Morocco,  and  finally  the  allot- 
ment under  a  French  mandate  of  a  portion  of  the  German 
colonies  free  from  incumbrances  of  any  kind.  .  .  .  We  shall 
receive  four  hundred  and  sixty-three  milliard  francs, 
payable  in  thirty-six  years,  without  counting  the  resti- 
tutions which  will  have  been  effected.  Nor  should  it  be 
forgotten  that  already  we  have  received  eight  milliards' 
worth  of  securities  stolen  from  French  bearers.  So  do  not 
consider  the  Treaty  as  a  misfortune  for  France."  ^ 

Soon  after  the  outburst  of  joy  with  which  the  ingather- 
ing of  the  fruits  of  France's  victory  was  celebrated,  clouds 
unexpectedly  drifted  athwart  the  cerulean  blue  of  the 
political  horizon,  and  dark  shadows  were  flung  across  the 
Allied  countries.  The  second-  and  third-class  nations  fell 
out  with  the  first-class  Powers.  Italy,  for  example,  whose 
population  is  almost  equal  to  that  of  her  French  sister, 
demanded  compensation  for  the  vast  additions  that  were 
being  made  to  France's  extensive  possessions.  The 
grounds  alleged  were  many.  Compensation  had  been 
promised  by  the  secret  treaty.  The  need  for  it  was  re- 
inforced by  the  rejection  of  Italy's  claims  in  the  Adriatic. 
The  Italian  people  required,  desired,  and  deserved  a  fair 
and  fitting  field  for  legitimate  expansion.  They  are  as 
numerous  as  the  French,  and  have  a  large  annual  surplus 
population,  which  has  to  hew  wood  and  draw  water  for 
foreign  peoples.  They  are  enterprising,  industrious, 
thrifty,  and  hard  workers.     Their  country  lacks  some  of 

^  Speech  of  M.  Klotz  in  the  Chamber  on  September  5,  1919.  Cf.  L'Echo 
de  Paris,  September  6,  1919. 

438 


SIDELIGHTS  ON  THE  TREATY 

the  necessaries  of  material  prosperity,  such  as  coal,  iron, 
and  cotton.  Why  should  it  not  receive  a  territory  rich 
in  some  of  these  [products  ?  Why  should  a  large  contingent 
of  Italy's  population  have  to  go  to  the  colonies  of  Spain, 
France,  and  Britain  or  to  South  American  republics  for 
a  livelihood?  The  Italian  press  asked  whether  the  Su- 
preme Council  was  bent  on  fulfilling  the  Gospel  dictum, 
"Whosoever  hath,  to  him  shall  be  given.  .  .  ." 

One  of  the  first  demands  made  by  Italy  was  for  the 
port  and  town  of  Djibouti,  which  is  under  French  sway. 
It  was  rejected,  curtly  and  emphatically.  Other  requests 
elicited  plausible  explanations  why  they  could  not  be 
complied  with.  In  a  word,  Italy  was  treated  as  a  poor 
and  importunate  relation,  and  was  asked  to  console  her- 
self with  the  reflection  that  she  was  working  in  the  vine- 
yard of  idealism.  In  vain  eminent  publicists  in  Rome, 
Turin,  and  Milan  pleaded  their  country's  cause.  Adopting 
the  principle  which  Mr.  Wilson  had  applied  to  France 
and  Britain,  they  affirmed  that  even  before  the  war 
France,  with  a  larger  population  and  fewer  possessions, 
had  shown  that  she  was  incapable  of  discharging  the 
functions  which  she  had  voluntarily  taken  upon  herself. 
Tunis,  they  alleged,  owed  its  growth  and  thriving  con- 
dition to  Italian  emigrants.  With  all  the  fresh  additions 
to  her  territories,  the  population  of  the  Republic  would  be 
utterly  inadequate  to  the  task.  To  the  Supreme  Council 
this  line  of  reasoning  was  distinctly  unpalatable.  Nor 
did  the  Italians  further  their  cause  when,  by  way  of 
giving  emphatic  point  to  their  reasoning,  their  press 
quoted  that  eminent  Frenchman,  M.  d'Estoumelles  de 
Constant,  who  wrote  at  that  very  moment:  "France 
has  too  many  colonies  already — far  more  in  Asia,  in 
Africa,  in  America,  in  Oceania  than  she  can  fructify. 
In  this  way  she  is  immobilizing  territories,  continents, 
peoples,    which   nominally   she   takes   over.     And   it   is 

439 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

childish  and  imprudent  to  take  barren  possession  of  them, 
when  other  states  allege  their  power  to  utilize  them  in 
the  general  interest.  By  acting  in  this  manner,  France, 
do  what  she  may,  is  placing  herself  in  opposition  to  the 
world's  interests,  and  to  those  of  the  League  of  Nations. 
In  the  long  run  it  is  a  serious  business.  Spain,  Portugal, 
and  Holland  know  this  to  their  cost.  Do  what  she 
would,  France  was  not  able  before  the  war  to  utilize  all 
her  immense  colonial  domain  ...  for  lack  of  population. 
She  will  be  still  less  able  after  the  war.  .  .  ."  ^ 

The  discussion  grew  dangerously  animated.  Epigrams 
were  coined  and  sent  floating  in  the  heavily  charged  air. 
A  tactless  comparison  was  made  between  the  French 
nation  and  a  bon  vivant  of  sixty-five  who  flatters  himself 
that  he  can  enjoy  life's  pleasures  on  the  same  scale  as 
when  he  was  only  thirty.  Little  arrows  thus  barbed 
with  biting  acid  often  make  more  enduring  mischief 
than  sledge-hammer  blows.  Soon  the  estrangement 
between  the  two  sister  nations  unhappily  became  wider 
and  led  to  marked  divergences  in  their  respective  policies, 
which  seem  fraught  with  grave  consequences  in  the 
future. 

The  Italy  of  to-day  is  not  the  Italy  of  May,  1915. 
She  now  knows  exactly  where  she  stands.  When  she 
unsheathed  her  sword  to  fight  against  the  allies  of  the 
state  that  declared  a  treaty  to  be  but  a  scrap  of  paper, 
she  was  heartened  by  a  solemn  promise  given  in  writing 
by  her  comrades  in  arms.  But  when  she  had  accom- 
plished her  part  of  the  contract,  that  document  turned 
out  to  be  little  more  than  another  scrap  of  paper.  Thus 
it  was  one  of  the  piquant  ironies  of  Fate,  Italian  publicists 
said,  that  the  people  who  had  mostly  clamored  against 
that  doctrine  were  indirectly  helping  it  to  triumph.     Mr. 


1  D'Estournelles  de  Constant.    Bulletin  des  Droits  de  l' Homme,  Ma3^  15, 
1919. 

440 


SIDELIGHTS  ON  TIIK  TREATY 

Wilson,  unwillingly  sapping  i)ublic  faith  in  written 
treaties,  was  held  up  as  one  of  the  many  pictures  in  which 
the  Conference  abounded  of  the  delegates  refuting  their 
words  by  acts.  The  unbiased  historian  will  readily 
admit  that  the  secret  treaties  were  profoundly  immoral 
from  the  Wilsonian  angle  of  vision,  but  that  the  only 
way  of  canceling  them  was  by  a  general  principle  rigidly 
upheld  and  impartially  applied.  And  this  the  Supreme 
Council  would  not  entertain. 

With  her  British  ally,  too,  France  had  an  unpleasant 
falling  out  about  Eastern  affairs,  and  in  especial  about 
Syria  and  Persia.  There  was  also  a  demand  for  the 
retrocession  by  Britain  of  the  island  of  Mauritius,  but 
it  was  not  made  officially,  nor  is  it  a  subject  for  two 
such  nations  to  quarrel  over.  The  first  rift  in  the  lute 
was  caused  by  the  deposition  of  Emir  Faisal  respecting 
the  desires  of  the  Arab  population.  This  picturesque 
chief,  the  French  press  complained,  had  been  too  readily 
admitted  to  the  Conference  and  too  respectfully  listened 
to  there,  whereas  the  Persian  delegation  tramped  for 
months  over  the  Paris  streets  without  once  obtaining  a 
hearing.  The  Hedjaz,  which  had  been  independent 
from  time  immemorial,  was  formally  recognized  as  a 
separate  kingdom  during  the  war,  and  the  Grand  Sheriff 
of  Mecca  was  suddenly  raised  to  the  throne  in  the  Euro- 
pean sense  by  France  and  Britain.  Since  then  he  was 
formally  recognized  by  the  five  Powers.  His  representa- 
tives in  Paris  demanded  the  annexation  of  all  the  countries 
of  Arabic  speech  which  were  under  Turkish  domination. 
These  included  not  only  Mesopotamia,  but  also  Syria, 
on  which  France  had  long  looked  with  loving  eyes  and 
respecting  which  there  existed  an  accord  between  her  and 
Britain.  The  project  community  would  represent  a 
Pan- Arab  federation  of  about  eleven  million  souls,  over 
which  France  would  have  no  giiardianship.     And  yet  the 

441 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

written  accord  had  never  been  annulled.  Palestine  was 
excluded  from  this  Pan- Arabian  federation,  and  Syria 
was  to  be  consulted,  and  instead  of  being  handed  over  to 
France,  as  M.  Clemenceau  demanded,  was  to  be  allowed 
to  declare  its  own  wishes  without  any  injunctions  from 
the  Conference.  Mesopotamia  would  be  autonomous 
under  the  League  of  Nations,  but  a  single  mandatory  was 
asked  for  by  the  king  of  the  Hedjaz  for  the  entire  eleven 
million  inhabitants. 

The  comments  of  the  French  press  on  Britain's  attitude, 
despite  their  studied  reserve  and  conventional  phraseology, 
bordered  on  recrimination  and  hinted  at  a  possible  cooling 
of  friendship  between  the  two  nations,  and  in  the  course 
of  the  controversy  the  evil-omened  word  "Fashoda" 
was  pronounced.  The  French  Temps' s  arguments  were 
briefly  these:  The  populations  claimed  occupy  such  a 
vast  stretch  of  territory  that  the  sovereignty  of  the 
Hedjaz  could  hardly  be  more  than  nominal  and  symboli- 
cal. In  fact,  they  cover  an  area  of  one-half  of  the  Otto- 
man Empire.  These  different  provinces  would,  in 
reality,  be  under  the  domination  of  the  Great  Power 
which  was  the  real  creator  of  this  new  kingdom,  and  the 
monarch  of  the  Hedjaz  would  be  a  mere  stalking-horse 
of  Britain.  This,  it  was  urged,  would  not  be  independence, 
but  a  masked  protectorate,  and  in  the  name  of  the  higher 
principles  must  be  prevented.  Syria  must  be  handed 
over  to  France  without  consulting  the  population.  The 
financial  resources  of  the  Hedjaz  are  utterly  inadequate 
for  the  administration  of  such  a  vast  state  as  was  being 
compacted.  Who,  then,  it  was  asked,  would  supply  the 
indispensable  funds?  Obviously  Britain,  who  had  been 
providing  the  Emir  Faisal  with  funds  ever  since  his  father 
donned  the  crown.  If  this  political  entity  came  into 
existence,  it  would  generate  continuous  friction  between 
France  and  Britain,  separate  comrades  in  arms,  delight 

442 


SIDELIGHTS  ON  THE  TREATY 

a  vigilant  enemy,  and  violate  a  written  compact  which 
should  be  sacred.  For  these  reasons  it  should  be  rejected 
and  Syria  placed  under  the  guardianship  of  France. 

The  Americans  took  the  position  that  congruously  with 
the  high  ethical  principles  which  had  guided  the  labors 
of  the  Conference  throughout,  it  was  incumbent  on  its 
members,  instead  of  bartering  civilized  peoples  like  chat- 
tels, to  consult  them  as  to  their  own  aspirations.  If  it 
were  true  that  the  Syrians  were  yearning  to  become  the 
wards  of  France,  there  could  be  no  reasonable  objection 
on  the  part  of  the  French  delegates  to  agree  to  a  plebiscite. 
But  the  French  delegates  declined  to  entertain  the  sug- 
gestion on  the  ground  that  Syria's  longing  for  French 
guidance  was  a  notorious  fact. 

After  much  discussion  and  vehement  opposition  on  the 
part  of  the  French  delegates  an  Inter-Allied  commission 
under  Mr.  Charles  Crane  was  sent  to  visit  the  countries 
in  dispute  and  to  report  on  the  leanings  of  their  popu- 
lations. After  having  visited  forty  cities  and  towns  and 
more  than  three  hundred  villages,  and  received  over 
fifteen  hundred  delegations  of  natives,  the  commission 
reported  that  the  majority  of  the  people  "prefer  to  main- 
tain their  independence,"  but  do  not  object  to  live  under 
the  mandatory  system  for  fifty  years  provided  the  United 
States  accepts  the  mandate.  "Syria  desires  to  become  a 
sovereign  kingdom,  and  most  of  the  population  supports 
the  Emir  Faisal  as  king."^  The  commission  further  ascer- 
tained that  the  Syrians,  "who  are  singularly  enlightened 
as  to  the  policies  of  the  United  States,"  invoked  and  relied 
upon  a  Franco-British  statement  of  policy  ^  which  had 
been  distributed  broadcast  throughout  their  country, 
"promising  complete  liberation  from  the  Turks  and  the 
establishment  of  free  governments  among  the  native  popu- 

^  The  Chicago  Tribune  (Paris  edition),  August  24,  1919. 
-  Issued  on  November  9,  191 8. 

443 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

lation  and  recognition  of  these  governments  by  France 
and  Britain. "  ^ 

The  result  of  the  investigation  by  the  Inter-Allied 
commission  reminds  one  of  the  story  of  the  two  anglers 
who  were  discussing  the  merits  of  two  different  sauces 
for  the  trout  which  one  of  them  had  caught.  As  they 
were  unable  to  agree  they  decided  to  refer  the  matter  to 
the  trout,  who  answered:  "Gentlemen,  I  do  not  wish  to 
be  eaten  with  any  sauce.  I  desire  to  live  and  be  free  in  my 
own  element."  "Ah,  now  you  are  wandering  from  the 
question,"  exclaimed  the  two,  who  thereupon  struck  up 
a  compromise  on  the  subject  of  the  sauce. 

The  tone  of  this  long-drawn-out  controversy,  especially 
in  the  press,  was  distinctly  acrimonious.  It  became 
dangerously  bitter  when  the  French  political  world  was 
apprised  one  day  of  the  conclusion  of  a  treaty  between 
Britain  and  Persia  as  the  outcome  of  secret  negotiations 
between  London  and  Teheran.  And  excitement  grew 
intenser  when  shortly  afterward  the  authentic  text  of 
this  agreement  v/as  disclosed.  In  France,  Italy,  Germany, 
Russia,  and  the  United  States  the  press  unanimously  de- 
clared that  Persia's  international  status  as  determined  by 
the  new  diplomatic  instrument  could  best  be  described  by 
the  evil-sounding  words  "protectorate"  and  the  violation 
of  the  mandatory  system  adopted  by  the  Conference. 

This  startling  development  shed  a  strong  light  upon  the 
new  ordering  of  the  world  and  its  relation  to  the  Wilsonian 
gospel,  complicated  with  secret  negotiations,  protectorates 
without  mandates,  and  the  one-sided  abrogation  of 
compacts. 

Persia  is  one  of  the  original  members  of  the  League 
of  Nations,-  and  as  such  was  entitled,  the  French  argued, 

1  Sec  The  Chicago  Tribune  (Paris  edition),  August  30,  19 19. 

2  An  American  vSenator  uncharitaljly  conjectured  that  she  received  this 
honorable  distinction  iii  order  to  contribute  an  additional  vote  to  the 
British. 

444 


SIDELIGHTS  OX  'lUK  TRKATY 

lo  a  hearing  at  the  Conference.  She  had  grievances  that 
called  for  redress:  her  neutrality  had  been  violated, 
many  of  her  subjects  had  been  put  to  death,  and  her  titles 
lo  reparation  were  undeniable.  President  Wilson,  the 
comforter  of  small  states  and  opjjressed  nationalities, 
having  proclaimed  that  the  weakest  communities  would 
command  the  same  friendly  treatment  as  the  greatest, 
the  Persian  delegates  repaired  to  Paris  in  the  belief  that 
this  treatment  would  be  accorded  them.  But  there  they 
were  disillusioned.  For  them  there  was  no  admission. 
Whether,  if  they  had  been  heard  and  helped  by  the 
Supreme  Council,  they  would  have  contrived  to  exist  as  an 
independent  state  is  a  question  which  cannot  be  discussed 
here.  The  point  made  by  the  French  was  that  on  its  own 
showing  the  Conference  was  morally  bound  to  receive  the 
Persian  delegation.  The  utmost  it  obtained  was  that  the 
Persian  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  Monalek,  who  was 
head  of  the  delegation,  had  a  private  talk  with  President 
Wilson,  Colonel  House,  and  Mr,  Lansing.  These  states- 
men unhesitatingly  promised  to  help  Persia  to  secure  full 
sovereign  rights,  or  at  any  rate  to  enable  her  delegates 
to  unfold  their  country's  case  and  file  their  protests 
before  the  Conference.  The  delegates  were  comforted 
and  felt  sure  of  the  success  of  their  mission.  They  told  the 
American  plenipotentiaries  that  the  United  States  would 
be  Persia's  creditor  for  this  help  and  that  she  would  invite 
American  financiers  to  put  her  money  matters  in  order, 
American  engineers  to  develop  her  mining  industries,  and 
the  American  oil  firms  to  examine  and  exploit  her  petrol 
deposits.^  In  a  word,  Persia  would  be  Americanized. 
This  naive  announcement  of  the  role  reserved  for  American 
benefactors  in  the  land  of  the  Shah  might  have  impressed 
certain  commercial  and  financial  interests  in  the  United 


^  Cf.  inten'iew  with  a  Persian  oflScial,  published  in  the  Paris  edition  of 
The  Chicago  Tribune,  August  19,  19 19. 

445 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

States,  but  was  wholly  alien  to  the  only  order  of  motives 
that  could  properly  move  the  American  plenipotentiaries 
to  interpose  in  favor  of  their  would-be  wards. 

The  promises  made  by  Messrs.  Wilson,  House,  and 
Lansing  came  to  nothing.  For  months  the  Persian  envoys 
lived  in  hope  which  was  strengthened  by  the  assurances  of 
various  members  of  the  Conference  that  the  intervention 
of  Mr.  Wilson  would  infallibly  prove  successful.  But 
events  belied  this  forecast,  whereupon  the  head  of  the 
Persian  delegation,  after  several  months  of  hopes  de- 
ferred, quitted  France  for  Constantinople,  and  his 
country's  position  among  the  nations  was  settled  in 
detail  by  the  new  agreement. 

That  position  does  undoubtedly  resemble  very  closely 
Egypt's  status  before  the  outbreak  of  the  World  War. 
And  Egypt's  status  could  hardly  be  termed  independence. 
Henceforward  Great  Britain  has  a  strong  hold  on  the 
Persian  customs,  the  control  of  the  waterways  and  car- 
riage routes,  the  rights  of  railway  construction,  the  oil- 
fields— these  were  ours  before — the  right  to  organize  the 
army  and  direct  the  foreign  policy  of  the  kingdom.  And 
it  may  fairly  be  argued  that  this  arrangement  may  prove 
a  greater  blessing  to  the  Persians  than  the  realization  of 
their  own  ambitions.  That,  at  any  rate,  is  my  own 
personal  belief,  which  for  many  years  I  have  held  and 
expressed.  None  the  less  it  runs  diametrically  counter 
to  the  letter  and  the  spirit  of  Wilsonianism,  which  is  now 
seen  to  be  a  wall  high  enough  to  keep  out  the  dwarf 
states,  but  which  the  giants  can  easily  clear  at  a  bound. 

Against  this  violation  of  the  new  humanitarian  doctrine 
French  publicists  flared  up.  The  glaring  character  of  the 
transgression  revolted  them,  the  plight  of  the  Persians 
touched  them,  and  the  right  of  self-determination  strongly 
appealed  to  them.  Was  it  not  largely  for  the  assertion 
of  that  right  that  all  the  Allied  peoples  had  for  five  years 

446 


SIDELIGHTS  ON  THE  TREATY 

been  making  unheard-of  sacrifices?  What  would  become 
of  the  League  of  Nations  if  such  secret  and  selfish  doings 
were  connived  at?  In  a  word,  French  sympathy  for  the 
victims  of  British  hegemony  waxed  as  strong  as  the  Brit- 
ish fellow-feeling  for  the  Syrians,  who  objected  to  be 
drawn  into  the  orbit  of  the  French.  Those  sharp  protests 
and  earnest  appeals,  it  may  be  noted,  were  the  principal, 
perhaps  the  only,  symptoms  of  tenderness  for  unpro- 
tected peoples  which  were  evoked  by  the  great  ethical 
movement  headed  by  the  Conference. 

The  French  further  pointed  out  that  the  system  of 
Ivlandates  had  been  specially  created  for  countries  as 
backward  and  helpless  as  Persia  was  assumed  to  be,  and 
that  the  only  agency  qualified  to  apply  it  was  either  the 
Supreme  Council  or  the  League  of  Nations.  The  British 
press  answered  that  no  such  humiliating  assumption  about 
the  Shah's  people  was  being  made,  that  the  Foreign  Office 
had  distinctly  disclaimed  the  intention  of  establishing  a 
protectorate  over  Persia,  who  is,  and  will  remain,  a  sov- 
ereign and  independent  state.  But  these  explanations 
failed  to  convince  oiu-  indignant  Allies.  They  argued, 
from  experience,  that  no  trust  was  to  be  placed  in  those 
official  assurances  and  euphemistic  phrases  which  are 
generally  belied  by  subsequent  acts.^  They  further 
lamented  that  the  long  and  secret  negotiations  which  were 
going  forward  in  Teheran  while  the  Persian  delegation 
was  wearily  and  vainly  waiting  in  Paris  to  be  allowed  to 
plead  its  country's  cause  before  the  great  world-dictators 
was  not  a  good  example  of  loyalty  to  the  new  cosmic  legis- 
lation. Had  not  Mr.  Wilson  proclaimed  that  peoples 
were  no  longer  to  be  bartered  and  swapped  as  chattels? 

^  "Unfortunately,  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  who  has  stripped  the  Foreign  OfiBce 
of  real  power,  has  frequently  given  assurances  of  this  nature,  and  his  acts 
have  always  contradicted  them.  As  a  proof,  his  last  interview  with  M. 
Clemenceau  will  serve."  Cf.  L'Echo  de  Paris,  August  15,  1919,  article  by 
Pertinax. 

447 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

Here  the  Italians  and  Rumanians  chimed  in,  reminding 
their  kinsmen  that  it  was  the  same  American  statesmen 
who  in  the  peace  conditions  first  presented  to  Count 
Brockdorff-Rantzau  made  over  the  German  population  of 
the  Saar  Valley  to  France  at  the  end  of  fifteen  years  as 
the  fair  equivalent  of  a  sum  of  money  payable  in  gold, 
and  that  France  at  any  rate  had  raised  no  objection  to  the 
barter  nor  to  the  principle  at  the  root  of  it.  They  rea- 
soned that  if  the  principle  might  be  applied  to  one  case 
it  should  be  deemed  equally  applicable  to  the  other,  and 
that  the  only  persons  or  states  that  could  with  propriety 
demur  to  the  Anglo-Persian  arrangements  were  those  who 
themselves  were  not  benefiting  by  similar  transactions. 

At  last  the  Paris  press,  laying  due  weight  on  the  alliance 
with  Britain,  struck  a  new  note.  "It  vseems  that  these 
last  Persian  bargainings  offer  a  theme  for  conversations 
between  our  government  and  that  of  the  Allies,"  one 
influential  journal  wrote. ^  At  once  the  amicable  sugges- 
tion was  taken  up  by  the  British  press.  The  idea  was  to 
join  the  Syrian  with  the  Persian  transactions  and  make 
French  concessions  on  the  other.  This  compromise  would 
compose  an  ugly  quarrel  and  settle  everything  for  the 
best.  For  France's  intentions  toward  the  people  of  Syria 
were,  it  was  credibly  asserted,  to  the  full  as  disinterested 
and  generous  as  those  of  Britain  toward  Persia,  and  if  the 
Syrians  desired  an  English-speaking  nation  rather  than 
the  French  to  be  their  mentor,  it  was  equally  true  that  the 
Persians  wanted  Americans  rather  than  British  to  super- 
intend and  accelerate  their  progress  in  civilization.  But 
instead  of  harkening  to  the  wishes  of  only  one  it  would 
be  better  to  ignore  those  of  both.  By  this  prudent  com- 
promise all  the  demands  of  right  and  justice,  for  which 
both  governments  were  earnest  sticklers,  would  thus  be 
amply  satisfied. 

1  Le  Journal  des  Debats,  August  15,  1919. 

448 


SIDELIGHTS  ON  THE  TREATY 

Our  American  associates  were  less  easily  appeased.  In 
sooth  there  was  nothing  left  wherewith  to  appease  them. 
Their  press  condemned  the  "protectorate"  as  a  breach 
of  the  Covenant.  Secretary  Lansing  let  it  be  known' 
that  the  Unite^l  States  delegation  had  striven  to  obtain  a 
hearing  for  the  Persians  at  the  Conference,  but  had  "lost 
its  fight."  A  Persian,  when  apprized  of  this  utterance, 
said:  "When  the  United  States  delegation  strove  to  hin- 
der Italy  from  annexing  Fiume  and  obtaining  the  terri- 
tories promised  her  by  a  secret  treaty,  they  accomplished 
their  aim  because  they  refused  to  give  way.  Then  they 
took  care  not  to  lose  their  fight.  Wlien  they  accepted  a 
brief  for  the  Jews  and  imposed  a  Jewish  semi-state  on 
Rumania  and  Poland,  they  were  firm  as  the  granite  rock, 
and  no  amount  of  opposition,  no  future  deterrents,  made 
any  imj^ression  on  their  will.  Accordingly,  they  had  their 
way.  But  in  the  cause  of  Persia  they  lost  the  fight, 
although  logic,  humanity,  justice,  and  the  ordinances 
solemnly  accepted  by  the  Great  Powers  were  all  on  their 
side."  .  .  .  One  American  press  organ  termed  the  Anglo- 
Persian  accord  "a  coup  which  is  a  greater  violation  of  the 
Wilsonian  Fourteen  Points  than  the  Shantung  award  to 
Japan,  as  it  makes  the  whole  of  Persia  a  mere  protectorate 
for  Britain."  - 

Generally  speaking,  illustrations  of  the  meaning  of  non- 
intervention in  the  home  affairs  of  other  nations  were 
numerous  and  somewhat  perplexing.  Were  it  not  that 
Mr.  Wilson  had  come  to  Europe  for  the  express  purpose 
of  interpreting  as  well  as  enforcing  his  own  doctrine,  one 
would  have  been  warranted  in  assuming  that  the  Supreme 
Council  was  frequently  travestying  it.  But  as  the  Presi- 
dent was  himself  one  of  the  leading  members  of  that 
Council,   whose  decisions  were   unanimous,   the  utmost 

'  In  Washington  on  August  i6,  1919. 

*  The  Chicago  Tribune  (Paris  edition),  August  19,  19 19. 

449 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

that  one  can  take  for  granted  is  that  he  strove  to  impose 
his  tenets  on  his  intractable  colleagues  and  "lost  the 
fight." 

Here  is  a  striking  instance  of  what  would  look  to  the 
average  man  very  like  intervention  in  the  domestic  poli- 
tics of  another  nation — well-meant  and,  it  may  be,  benefi- 
cent intervention — were  it  not  that  we  are  assured  on  the 
highest  authority  that  it  is  nothing  of  the  sort.  It  was 
devised  as  an  expedient  for  getting  outside  help  for  the 
capture  of  Petrograd  by  the  anti-Bolshevists.  The  end, 
therefore,  was  good,  and  the  means  seemed  effectual  to 
those  who  employed  them.  The  Kolchak-Denikin  party 
could,  it  was  believed,  have  taken  possession  of  that 
capital  long  before,  by  obtaining  the  military  co-operation 
of  the  Esthonians.  But  the  price  asked  by  these  was  the 
recognition  of  their  complete  independence  by  the  non- 
Bolshevist  government  in  the  name  of  all  Russia.  Kol- 
chak,  to  his  credit,  refused  to  pay  this  price,  seeing  that 
he  had  no  powers  to  do  so,  and  only  a  dictator  would  sign 
away  the  territory  by  usurping  the  requisite  authority. 
Consequently  the  combined  attack  on  Petrograd  was  not 
undertaken.  The  Admiral's  refusal  was  justified  by  the 
circumstances  that  he  was  the  spokesman  only  of  a  large 
section  of  the  Russian  people,  and  that  a  thoroughly 
representative  assembly  must  be  consulted  on  the  subject 
previous  to  action  being  taken.  The  military  stagnation 
that  ensued  lasted  for  months.  Then  one  day  the  press 
brought  the  tidings  that  the  difficulty  was  ingeniously 
overcome.  This  is  the  shape  in  which  the  intelligence 
was  communicated  to  the  world:  "Colonel  Marsh,  of  the 
British  army,  who  is  representing  General  Gough,  organ- 
ized a  republic  in  northwest  Russia  at  Reval,  August  12th, 
within  forty-Jive  minutes,  General  Yudenitch  being  nom- 
inally the  head  of  the  new  government,  which  is  affiliated 
with  the  Kolchak  government.     Northwest  Russia  op- 

450 


SIDELIGHTS  ON  THE  TREATY 

poses  the  Esthonian  government  only  m  principle  because 
it  wants  guaranties  that  the  Ksthonians  will  not  be  the 
stepping-stone  for  some  big  Power  like  Germany  to  con- 
trol the  Russian  outlet  through  the  Baltic.  If  the  Estho- 
nians  give  such  guaranties,  the  northwestern  Russians  are 
perfectly  willing  to  let  them  become  an  independent  state. ' ' ' 

Here  then  was  a  "British  colonel"  who,  in  addition  to 
his  military  duties,  was,  according  to  this  account,  willing 
and  able  to  create  an  independent  republic  without  any 
Supreme  Council  to  assist  him,  whereas  professional  di- 
plomatists and  military  men  of  other  nations  had  been 
tr>dng  for  months  to  found  a  Rhine  republic  under  Dor- 
ten  and  had  failed.  Nor  did  he,  if  the  newspaper  report 
be  correct,  waste  much  time  at  the  business.  From  the 
moment  of  its  inception  until  northwestern  Russia  stood 
forth  an  independent  state,  promulgating  and  executing 
grave  decisions  in  the  sphere  of  international  politics,  only 
forty-five  minutes  are  said  to  have  elapsed.  Forty-five 
minutes  by  the  clock.  It  was  almost  as  quick  a  feat  as 
the  drafting  of  the  Covenant  of  Nations.  Further,  the 
resourceful  statemaker  forged  a  republic  which  was  quali- 
fied to  transfer  sovereignly  Russian  territory  to  unrecog- 
nized states  without  consulting  the  nation  or  obtaining 
authority  from  any  one.  More  marvelous  than  any  other 
detail,  however,  is  the  circumstance  that  he  did  his  work 
so  well  that  it  never  amounted  to  intervention. ^ 

One  cannot  affect  surprise  if  the  distinction  between 
this  amazing  exploit  of  diplomatico-military  prestidigita- 
tion and  intermeddling  in  the  internal  affairs  of  another 
nation  prove  too  subtle  for  the  mental  grasp  of  the  aver- 
age unpolitical  individual. 

'  The  Chicago  Tribune  (Paris  edition),  August  24,  1919. 

^  After  the  abov^e  was  written,  a  French  journal,  the  Echo  de  Paris  of 
September  19,  1919,  announced  that  General  Marsh  declares  that  his 
agents  acted  without  his  instructions,  but  none  the  loss  it  holds  him  re- 
sponsible for  this  Baltic  poUcy. 

30  451 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

It  is  practices  like  these  which  ultimately  determine 
the  worth  of  the  treaties  and  the  Covenant  which  Mr. 
Wilson  was  content  to  take  back  with  him  to  Washington 
as  the  final  outcome  of  what  was  to  have  been  the  most 
superb  achievement  of  historic  man.  Of  the  new  ethical 
j)rinciples,  of  the  generous  renunciation  of  privileges,  of 
the  righting  of  secular  wrongs,  of  the  respect  that  was  to 
be  shown  for  the  weak,  which  were  to  have  cemented  the 
union  of  peoples  into  one  pacific  if  not  blissful  family, 
there  remained  but  the  memory.  No  such  bitter  draught 
of  disappointment  was  swallowed  by  the  nations  since 
the  world  first  had  a  political  history.  Many  of  the  re- 
sounding phrases  that  once  foretokened  a  new  era  of  peace, 
right,  and  equity  were  not  merely  emptied  of  their  con- 
tents, but  made  to  connote  their  opposites.  Freedom,  of 
the  seas  became  supremacy  of  the  seas,  which  may  pos- 
sibly turn  out  to  be  a  blessed  consummation  for  all  con- 
cerned, but  should  not  have  been  smuggled  in  under  a 
gross  misnomer.  The  abolition  of  war  means,  as  British 
and  American  and  French  generals  and  admirals  have 
since  told  their  respective  fellow-citizens,  thorough  prep- 
arations for  the  next  war,  which  are  not  to  be  confined, 
as  heretofore,  to  the  so-called  military  states,  but  are 
to  extend  over  all  Anglo-Saxondon.^  "Open  covenants 
openly  arrived  at"  signify  secret  conclaves  and  con- 
spirative  deliberations  carried  on  in  impenetrable  se- 
crecy which  cannot  be  dispensed  with  even  after  the 
whole    business    has    passed    into    history.^     The    self- 


'  Marshal  Douglas  Haig,  Lord  French,  the  American  pacifist,  Sydney 
Baker,  Senator  Chamberlain,  Rei)rescntative  Kahn,  and  a  host  of  others 
have  been  preaching  universal  military  training.  The  press,  too,  with  con- 
siderable exceptions,  favors  the  movement.  "We  want  a  democratized 
army,  which  represents  all  the  nation,  and  it  can  be  found  only  in  universal 
service.  .  .  .  Universal  service  is  our  best  guaranty  of  peace."  Cf.  The 
Chicago  Tribune  (Paris  edition),  August  22,  1919. 

^  President  Wilson,  when  at  the  close  of  his  conference  with  the  Senate 
Committee  on  Foreign  Relations — at  the  White  House — asked  how  the 

452 


SIDELIGHTS  ON  THE  TREATY 

determination  of  peoples  fjnds  its  limit  in  the  rights 
of  every  Great  Power  to  hold  its  subject  nationalities 
in  thrall  on  the  ground  that  their  reci])rocal  relations 
appertain  to  the  domestic  policy  of  the  state.  It  means, 
further,  the  privilege  of  those  who  wield  superior  force 
to  put  irresistible  pressure  upon  those  who  are  weak, 
and  the  lever  which  it  places  in  their  hands  for  the  pur- 
pose is  to  be  known  under  the  attractive  name  of  the  pro- 
tection of  minorities.  Abstention  from  interference  in  the 
home  affairs  of  a  neighboring  community  is  made  to  cover 
intermeddling  of  the  most  irksome  and  humiliating  char- 
acter in  matters  which  have  no  nexus  with  international 
law,  for  if  they  had,  the  rule  would  be  applicable  to  all 
nations.  The  lesser  peoples  must  harken  to  injunctions 
of  the  greater  states  respecting  their  mode  of  treating 
alien  immigrants  and  must  submit  to  the  control  of  foreign 
bodies  which  are  ignorant  of  the  situation  and  its  require- 
ments. Nor  is  it  enough  that  those  states  should  accord 
to  the  members  of  the  Jewish  and  other  races  all  the  rights 
which  their  own  citizens  enjoy — they  must  go  farther  and 
invest  them  with  special  privileges,  and  for  this  purpose 
renounce  a  portion  of  their  sovereignty.  They  must  like- 
wise allow  their  more  powerful  allies  to  dictate  to  them 
their  legislation  on  matters  of  transit  and  foreign  com- 
merce.^ For  the  Great  Powers,  however,  this  law  of 
minorities  was  not  written.  They  are  above  the  law. 
Their  warrant  is  force.  In  a  word,  force  is  the  tnimp 
card  in  the  political  game  of  the  future  as  it  was  in  that 
of  the  past.  And  M.  Clemenceau's  reminder  to  the  petty 
states  at  the  opening  of  the  Conference  that  the  wielders 

United  States  had  voted  on  the  Japanese  resolution  in  favor  of  race  equality, 
replied:  "I  am  not  sure  of  being  free  to  answer  the  question,  because  it 
affects  a  large  number  of  points  that  were  discussed  in  Paris,  and  in  the 
interest  of  international  harmony  I  think  I  had  better  not  reply." — The 
Daily  Mail  (Paris  edition),  August  22,  1919, 

*  In  virtue  of  Article  La  of  the  Treaty  with  Austria, 

453 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

of  twelve  million  troops  are  the  masters  of  the  situation 
was  appropriate.  Thus  the  war  which  was  provoked  by 
the  transformation  of  a  solemn  treaty  into  a  scrap  of 
paper  was  concluded  by  the  presentation  of  two  scraps 
of  paper  as  a  treaty  and  a  covenant  for  the  moral  renova- 
tion of  the  world. 


XIV 

THE    TREATY   WITH    GERMANY 

TO  discuss  in  detail  the  peace  terms  which  after  many 
months'  desultory  talk  were  finally  presented  to 
Count  Brockdorff-Rantzau  would  transcend  the  scope 
of  these  pages.  Like  every  other  act  of  the  Supreme 
Council,  they  may  be  viewed  from  one  of  two  widely 
sundered  angles  of  survey — either  as  the  exercise  by  a 
victorious  state  of  the  power  derived  from  victory  over 
the  vanquished  enemy,  or  as  one  of  the  measures  by  which 
the  peace  of  the  world  is  to  be  enforced  in  the  present  and 
consolidated  in  the  future.  And  from  neither  point  of 
view  can  it  command  the  approval  of  unbiased  political 
students.  At  first  the  Germans,  and  not  they  alone, 
expected  that  the  conditions  would  be  based  on  the 
Fourteen  Points,  while  many  of  the  Allies  took  it  for 
granted  that  they  would  be  inspired  by  the  resolve  to 
cripple  Teutondom  for  all  time.  And  for  each  of  these 
anticipations  there  were  good  formal  grounds. 

The  only  legitimate  motive  for  interweaving  the 
Covenant  with  the  Treaty  was  to  make  of  the  latter  a  sort 
of  corollary  of  the  former  and  to  moderate  the  instincts 
of  vengeance  by  the  promptings  of  higher  interests.  On 
this  ground,  and  only  on  this,  did  the  friends  of  far- 
ranging  reform  support  Mr.  Wilson  in  his  contention 
that  the  two  documents  should  be  rendered  mutually 
interdependent.  Reparation  for  the  damage  done  in 
violation    of   international    law    and    sound    guaranties 

455 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

against  its  recurrence  are  of  the  essence  of  every  peace 
treaty  that  follows  a  decisive  victory.  But  reparation  is 
seldom  this  and  nothing  more.  The  lower  instincts  of 
human  nature,  when  dominant  as  they  are  during  a 
bloody  war  and  in  the  hour  of  victory,  generally  out- 
weigh considerations  not  only  of  right,  but  also  of  en- 
lightened egotism,  leaving  justice  to  merge  into  ven- 
geance. And  the  fruits  are  treasured  wrath  and  a  secret 
resolve  on  the  part  of  the  vanquished  to  pay  out  his 
victor  at  the  first  opportunity.  The  war-loser  of  to-day 
aims  at  becoming  the  war-winner  of  to-morrow.  And 
this  frame  of  mind  is  incompatible  with  the  temper  needed 
for  an  era  of  moral  fellowship  such  as  Mr.  Wilson  was 
supposed  to  be  intent  on  establishing.  Consequently,  a 
peace  treaty  unmodified  by  the  principles  underlying  the 
Covenant  is  necessarily  a  negation  of  the  main  possibilities 
of  a  society  of  nations  based  upon  right  and  a  decisive 
argument  against  joining  together  the  two  instruments. 

The  other  kind  of  peace  which  Mr.  Wilson  was  believed 
to  have  had  at  heart  consisted  not  merely  in  the  liquida- 
tion of  the  war,  but  in  the  uprooting  of  its  permanent 
causes,  in  the  renunciation  by  the  various  nations  of 
sanguinary  conflicts  as  a  means  of  determining  rival 
claims,  and  in  such  an  amicable  rearrangement  of  inter- 
national relations  as  would  keep  such  disputes  from 
growing  into  dangerous  quarrels.  Right,  or  as  near  an 
approximation  to  it  as  is  attainable,  would  then  take  the 
place  of  violence,  whereby  military  guaranties  would 
become  not  only  superfluous,  but  indicative  of  a  spirit 
irreconcilable  with  the  main  purpose  of  the  League. 
Each  nation  would  be  entitled  to  equal  opportunity  within 
the  limits  assigned  to  it  by  nature  and  widened  by  its 
own  mental  and  moral  capacities.  Thus  permanently  to 
forbid  a  numerous,  growing,  and  territorially  cramped 
nation   to  possess  overseas  colonies  for  its  superfluous 

456 


THE  TREATY  WITH  GERMANY 

population  while  overburdening  others  with  possessions 
which  they  are  unable  to  utilize,  would  constitute  a 
negation  of  one  of  the  basic  principles  of  the  new  ordering. 

Those  were  the  grounds  which  seemed  to  warrant  the 
belief  that  the  Treaty  would  be  not  only  formally,  but 
substantially  and  in  its  spirit  an  integral,  part  of  the 
general  settlement  based  on  the  Fourteen  Points. 

This  anticipation  turned  out  to  be  a  delusion.  Wil- 
sonianism  proved  to  be  a  very  different  system  from  that 
of  the  Fourteen  Points,  and  its  author  played  the  part  not 
only  of  an  interpreter  of  his  tenets,  but  also  of  a  sort 
of  political  pope  alone  competent  to  annul  the  force  of 
laws  binding  on  all  those  whom  he  should  refuse  to  dispense 
from  their  observance.  He  had  to  do  with  patriotic 
politicians  permeated  with  the  old  ideas,  desirous  of  pro- 
viding in  the  peace  terms  for  the  next  war  and  striving 
to  secure  the  maximum  of  advantage  over  the  foe  pre- 
sumptive, by  dismembering  his  territory,  depriving  him 
of  colonies,  making  him  dependent  on  others  for  his 
supplies  of  raw  stuffs,  and  artificially  checking  his  natural 
growth.  Nearly  all  of  them  had  principles  to  invoke  in 
favor  of  their  claims  and  some  had  nothing  else.  And 
it  was  these  tendencies  which  Mr.  Wilson  sought  to 
combine  with  the  ethical  ideals  to  be  incarnated  in  the 
Society  of  Nations.  Now  this  was  an  impossible  syn- 
thesis. The  spirit  of  vindictiveness — for  that  was  well 
represented  at  the  Conference — was  to  merge  and  lose 
itself  in  an  outflow  of  magnanimity ;  precautions  against  a 
hated  enemy  were  to  be  interwoven  with  implicit  con- 
fidence  in  his  generosity;  a  military  occupation  would 
provide  against  a  sudden  onslaught,  while  an  approach 
to  disarmament  would  bear  witness  to  the  absence  of 
suspicion.  Thus  Poland  would  discharge  the  function  of 
France's  ally  against  the  Teutons  in  the  east,  but  her 
frontiers  were  to  leave  her  inefficiently  protected  against 

457 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

their  future  attacks  from  the  west.  Germany  was  dis- 
membered, yet  she  was  credited  with  self-discipline  and 
generosity  enough  to  steel  her  against  the  temptation  to 
profit  by  the  opportunity  of  joining  together  again  what 
France  had  dissevered.  The  League  of  Nations  was  to 
be  based  upon  mutual  confidence  and  good  fellowship, 
yet  one  of  its  most  powerful  future  members  was  so  dis- 
trusted as  to  be  declared  permanently  unworthy  to  possess 
any  overseas  colonies.  Germany's  territory  in  the  Saar 
Valley  is  admittedly  inhabited  by  Germans,  yet  for 
fifteen  years  there  is  to  be  a  foreign  administration  there, 
and  at  the  end  of  it  the  people  are  to  be  asked  whether 
they  would  like  to  cut  the  bonds  that  link  them  with  their 
own  state  and  place  themselves  under  French  sway,  so 
that  a  premium  is  offered  for  French  immigration  into 
the  Saar  Valley. 

Those  are  a  few  of  the  consequences  of  the  mixture 
of  the  two  irreconcilable  principles. 

That  Germany  richly  deserved  her  punishment  cannot 
be  gainsaid.  Her  crime  was  without  precedent.  Some 
of  its  most  sinister  consequences  are  irremediable.  Whole 
sections  of  her  people  are  still  unconscious  not  only  of 
the  magnitude,  but  of  the  criminal  character,  of  their  mis- 
deeds. None  the  less  there  is  a  future  to  be  provided 
for,  and  one  of  the  safest  provisions  is  to  influence  the 
potential  enemy's  will  for  evil  if  his  power  cannot  be 
paralyzed.     And  this  the  Treaty  failed  to  do. 

The  Germans,  when  they  learned  the  conditions,  dis- 
cussed them  angrily,  and  the  keynote  was  refusal  to  sign 
the  document.  The  financial  clauses  were  stigmatized 
as  masked  slavery.  The  press  urged  that  during  the 
war  less  than  one-tenth  of  France's  territory  had  been 
occupied  by  their  countrymen  and  that  even  of  this  only 
a  fragment  was  in  the  zone  of  combat.  The  entire  wealth 
of  France,  they  alleged,  had  been  estimated  before  the  war 

458 


THE  TREATY  WITH  GERMANY 

at  from  three  hundred  and  fifty  milliard  to  four  hundred 
milliard  francs,  consequently  for  the  devastated  provinces 
hardly  more  than  one-twentieth  of  that  sum  could  fairly 
be  demanded  as  reparation,  whereas  the  claim  set  forth 
was  incomparably  more.  They  objected  to  the  loss  of 
their  colonies  because  the  justification  alleged — that  they 
were  disqualified  to  administer  them  because  of  their 
former  cruelties  toward  the  natives — was  groundless, 
as  the  Allies  themselves  had  admitted  implicitly  by 
oftering  them  the  right  of  pre-emption  in  the  case  of  the 
Portuguese  and  other  overseas  possessions  on  the  very 
eve  of  the  war. 

But  the  most  telling  objections  turned  upon  the  clauses 
that  dealt  with  the  Saar  Valley.  Its  population  is  entirely 
German,  yet  the  treaty-makers  provided  for  its  occupa- 
tion by  the  French  for  a  term  of  fifteen  years  and  its 
transference  to  them  if,  after  that  term,  the  German 
government  was  unable  to  pay  a  certain  sum  in  gold 
for  the  coal  mines  it  contained.  If  that  sum  were  not 
forthcoming  the  population  and  the  district  were  to  be 
handed  over  to  France  for  all  time,  even  though  the 
former  should  vote  unanimously  for  reunion  with  Ger- 
many. Count  Brockdorff-Rantzau  remarked  in  his  note 
on  the  Treaty  "that  in  the  history  of  modern  times  there 
is  no  other  example  of  a  civilized  Power  obliging  a  state 
to  abandon  its  people  to  foreign  domination  as  an  equiv- 
alent for  a  cash  payment."  One  of  the  most  influential 
press  organs  complained  that  the  Treaty  "bartered 
German  men,  women,  and  children  for  coal;  subjected 
some  districts  with  a  thoroughly  German  population 
to  an  obligatory  plebiscite  ^  under  interested  supervision ; 

^  One  of  the  three  districts  of  Schleswig.  A  curious  phenomenon  was 
this  zeal  of  the  Supreme  Council  for  Denmark's  interests,  as  compared  with 
Denmark's  refusal  to  profit  by  it,  the  champions  of  self-determination 
urging  the  Danes  to  demand  a  district,  as  Danish,  which  the  Danes  knew 
to  be  German  1 

459 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

severed  others  without  any  consultation  from  the  Father- 
land; delivered  over  the  proceeds  of  German  industry 
to  the  greed  of  foreign  capitalists  for  an  indefinite  period ; 
.  .  .  spread  over  the  whole  country  a  network  of  alien 
commissions  to  be  paid  by  the  German  nation ;  withdrew 
streams,  rivers,  railways,  the  air  service,  numerous 
industrial  establishments,  the  entire  economic  system, 
from  the  sovereignty  of  the  German  state  by  means  either 
of  internationalization  or  financial  control;  conferred  on 
foreign  inspectors  rights  such  as  only  the  satraps  of 
absolute  monarchs  in  former  ages  were  empowered  to 
exercise;  in  a  word,  they  put  an  end  to  the  existence 
of  the  German  nation  as  such.  Germany  would  become 
a  colony  of  white  slaves.  .  .  ."  ^ 

Fortunately  for  the  Allies,  the  reproach  of  exchanging 
human  beings  for  coal  was  seen  by  their  leaders  to  be  so 
damaging  that  they  modified  the  odious  clause  that 
warranted  it.  Even  the  comments  of  the  friendly  neutral 
press  were  extremely  pungent.  They  found  fault  with 
the  Treaty  on  grounds  which,  unhappily,  cannot  be  rea- 
soned away.  "Why  dissimulate  it?"  writes  the  foremost 
of  these  journals;  "this  peace  is  not  what  we  were  led  to 
expect.  It  dislodges  the  old  dangers,  but  creates  new 
ones.  Alsace  and  Lorraine  are,  it  is  true,  no  longer  in 
German  hands,  but  .  .  .  irredentism  has  only  changed 
its  camp.  In  1914  Germany  put  her  faith  in  force  because 
she  herself  wielded  it.  But  crushed  down  under  a  peace 
which  appears  to  violate  the  promises  made  to  her,  a 
peace  which  in  her  heart  of  hearts  she  will  never  accept, 
she  will  turn  toward  force  anew.  It  will  stand  out  as  the 
great  misfortune  of  this  Treaty  that  it  has  tainted  the 
victory  with  a  moral  blight  and  caused  the  course  of  the 
German  revolution  to  swerve.  .  .  .  The  fundamental 
error  of  the  instrument  lies  in  the  circumstance  that  it 

'  Das  Berliner  Tageblatt,  June  4,  1919. 

4C0 


THE  TREATY  Willi  GERMANY 

is  a  compromise  between  two  incompatible  frames  of 
mind.  It  was  feasible  to  restore  peace  to  Europe  by 
pulling  down  Germany  definitely.  But  in  order  to 
accomplish  this  it  would  have  been  necessary  to  crush 
a  people  of  seventy  millions  and  to  incapacitate  them 
from  rising  to  their  feet  again.  Peace  could  also  have 
been  secured  by  the  sole  force  of  right.  But  in  this  case 
Germany  would  have  had  to  be  treated  so  considerately 
as  to  leave  her  no  grievance  to  brood  over.  M.  Clcmen- 
ceau  hindered  Mr.  Wilson  from  displaying  sufficient 
generosity  to  get  the  moral  peace,  and  Mr.  Wilson  on  his 
side  prevented  M.  Clemenceau  from  exercising  severity 
enough  to  secure  the  material  peace.  And  so  the  result, 
which  it  was  easy  to  foresee,  is  a  regime  devoid  of  the 
real  guaranties  of  durability."^ 

The  judge  of  the  French  syndicalists  was  still  more 
severe.  "The  Versailles  peace,"  exclaimed  M.  Verfeuil, 
"is  worse  than  the  peace  of  Brest-Litovsk  .  .  .  annexa- 
tions, economic  servitudes,  overwhelming  indemnities, 
and  a  caricature  of  the  Society  of  Nations — these  con- 
stitute the  balance  of  the  new  policy.  "^  The  Deputy 
Marcel  Cachin  said:  "The  Allied  armies  fought  to  make 
this  war  the  last.  They  fought  for  a  just  and  lasting 
peace,  but  none  of  these  boons  has  been  bestowed  on  us. 
We  are  confronted  with  the  failure  of  the  policy  of  the 
one  man  in  whom  our  party  had  put  its  confidence — 
President  Wilson.  The  peace  conditions  .  .  .  are  inac- 
ceptable  from  various  points  of  view,  financial,  territorial, 
economic,  social,  and  human."  ^ 

It  is  in  this  Treaty  far  more  than  in  the  Covenant  that 
the  principles  to  which  JMr.  Wilson  at  first  committed 
himself  are  in  decisive  issue.  True,  he  was  wont  after 
every  surrender  he  made  during  the  Conference  to  invoke 

'  Le  Journal  dc  Gcnlvc,  June  24,  1919. 

•  Cf.  L'Eclio  de  Paris,  May  12,  1919.  ^  Ibidem. 

461 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

the  Covenant  and  its  concrete  realization — the  League 
of  Nations — as  the  corrective  which  would  set  everything 
right  in  the  future.  But  the  fact  can  hardly  be  blinked 
that  it  is  the  Treaty  and  its  effects  that  impress  their 
character  on  the  Covenant  and  not  the  other  way  round. 
As  an  eminent  Swiss  professor  observed:  "No  league 
of  nations  would  have  hindered  the  Belgian  people  in 
1830  from  separating  from  Holland.  Can  the  future 
League  of  Nations  hinder  Germany  from  reconstituting 
its  geographical  unity?  Can  it  hinder  the  Germans  of 
Bohemia  from  smiting  the  Czech?  Can  it  prevent  the 
Magyars,  who  at  present  are  scattered,  from  working 
for  their  reunion?"  ^ 

These  potential  disturbances  are  so  many  dangers  to 
France.  For  if  war  should  break  out  in  eastern  Europe, 
is  it  to  be  supposed  that  the  United  States,  the  British 
colonies,  or  even  Britain  herself  will  send  troops  to  take 
part  in  it?  Hardly.  Suppose,  for  instance,  that  the 
Austrians,  who  ardently  desire  to  be  merged  in  Germany, 
proclaim  their  union  with  her,  as  I  am  convinced  they 
will  one  day,  does  any  statesman  believe  that  democratic 
America  will  despatch  troops  to  coerce  them  back  ?  If  the 
Germans  of  Bohemia  secede  from  the  Czechoslovaks 
or  the  Croats  from  the  Serbs,  will  British  armies  cross 
the  sea  to  uphold  the  union  which  those  peoples  repudiate? 
And  in  the  name  of  which  of  the  Fourteen  Points  would 
they  undertake  the  task?  That  of  self-determination? 
France's  interests,  and  hers  alone,  would  be  affected  by 
such  changes.  And  France  would  be  left  to  fight  single- 
handed.     For  what? 

It  is  interesting  to  note  how  the  conditions  imposed 
upon  Germany  were  appreciated  by  an  influential  body 
of  Mr.  Wilson's  American  partizans  who  had  pinned  their 

1  In  a  monograph  entitled  Plus  Jamais. 

462 


THE  TREATY   WITH  GERMANY 

faith  to  his  Fourteen  Points,     Their  view  is  expressed 
by  their  press  organ  as  follows :  ^ 

"France  remains  the  strongest  Power  on  the  Continent. 
With  her  military  establishment  intact  she  faces  a  Ger- 
many without  a  general  staff,  without  conscription,  with- 
out universal  military  training,  with  a  strictly  limited 
amount  of  light  artiller}',  with  no  air  service,  no  fleet, 
with  no  domestic  basis  in  raw  materials  for  armament 
manufacture,  with  her  whole  western  border  fifty  kilo- 
meters east  of  the  Rhine  demilitarized.  On  top  of  this 
France  has  a  system  of  military  alliances  with  the  new 
states  that  touch  Gennany.  On  top  of  this  she  secured 
permanent  representation  in  the  Council  of  the  League, 
from  which  Germany  is  excluded.  On  top  of  that  eco- 
nomic terms  which,  while  they  cannot  be  fulfilled,  do 
cripple  the  industrial  life  of  her  neighbor.  With  such  a 
balance  of  forces  France  demands  for  herself  a  form  of 
protection  which  neither  Belgium,  nor  Poland,  nor 
Czechoslovakia,  nor  Italy  is  granted." 

'  Cf.  The  New  Republic,  August  13,  191 9,  p.  43. 


XV 

THE  TREATY  WITH  BULGARIA 

A  MONG  all  the  strange  products  of  the  many-sided 
JLJL  outbursts  of  the  leading  delegates'  reconstructive 
activity,  the  Treaty  with  Bulgaria  stands  out  in  bold 
relief.  It  reveals  the  high-water  mark  reached  by  those 
secret,  elusive,  and  decisive  influences  which  swayed  so 
many  of  the  mysterious  decisions  adopted  by  the  Con- 
ference. As  Bulgaria  disposed  of  an  abundant  source 
of  those  influences,  her  chastisement  partakes  of  some 
of  the  characteristics  of  a  reward.  Not  only  did  she  not 
fare  as  the  treacherous  enemy  that  she  showed  herself, 
but  she  emerged  from  the  ordeal  much  better  off  than 
several  of  the  victorious  states.  Unlike  Serbia,  Rumania, 
France,  and  Belgium,  she  escaped  the  horrors  of  a  foreign 
invasion  and  she  possessed  and  fructified  all  her  resources 
down  to  the  day  when  the  armistice  was  concluded. 
Her  peasant  population  made  huge  profits  during  the 
campaign  and  her  armies  despoiled  Serbia,  Rumania, 
and  Greek  Macedonia  and  sent  home  enormous  booty. 
In  a  word,  she  is  richer  and  m.ore  prosperous  than  before 
she  entered  the  arena  against  her  protectors  and  former 
allies. 

For,  owing  to  the  intercession  of  her  powerful  friends, 
she  was  treated  with  a  degree  of  indulgence  which, 
although  expected  by  all  who  were  initiated  into  the 
secrets  of  "open  diplomacy,"  scandalized  those  who  were 
anxious  that  at  least  some  simulacrum  of  justice  should 

464 


THE  TREAIY  Will  I  BULGARIA 

be  maintained.  Germany  was  forced  to  sign  a  blank 
check  which  her  enemies  will  one  day  fill  in.  Austria  was 
reduced  to  the  status  of  a  jjarasite  living  on  the  bounty  of 
the  Great  Powers  and  denied  the  right  of  self-determina- 
tion. Even  France,  exhausted  by  five  years'  sujjcrhuman 
efforts,  beholds  with  alann  her  financial  future  entirely 
dependent  upon  the  ability  or  inability  of  Germany  to 
pay  the  damages  to  which  she  was  condemned. 

But  the  Prussia  of  the  Balkans,  owing  to  the  intercession 
of  influential  anonymous  friends,  had  no  such  conse- 
quences to  deplore.  Although  she  contracted  heavy  debts 
toward  Germany,  she  was  reneved  of  the  effort  to  pay 
them.  Her  financial  obligations  were  first  transferred  ^ 
to  the  Allies  and  then  magnanimously  wiped  out  by  these, 
who  then  limited  all  her  liabilities  for  reparations  to  two 
and  a  quarter  milliard  francs.  An  Inter-Allied  commission 
in  Sofia  is  to  find  and  return  the  loot  to  its  lawful  owners, 
but  it  is  to  charge  no  indemnity  for  the  damage  done. 
Nor  will  it  contain  representatives  of  the  states  whose 
property  the  Bulgars  abstracted.  Serbia  is  allowed 
neither  indemnity  nor  reparation.  She  is  to  receive  a 
share  which  the  Treaty  neglected  to  fix  of  the  two  and  a 
quarter  milliard  francs  on  a  date  which  has  also  been 
left  undetermined.  She  is  not  even  to  get  back  the 
herds  of  cattle  of  which  the  Bulgars  robbed  her.  The 
lawgivers  in  Paris  considered  that  justice  would  be  met 
by  obliging  the  Bulgars  to  restore  28,000  head  of  cattle 
in  lieu  of  the  3,200,000  driven  off,  so  that  even  if  the  ill- 
starred  Serbs  should  identify,  say,  one  million  more,  they 
would  have  no  right  to  enforce  their  claim.  ^ 

Nor  is  that  the  only  disconcerting  detail  in  the  Treaty. 
The  Supreme  Council,  which  sanctioned  the  military  oc- 


1  In  June,  1919. 

2  The  comments  on  these  terms,  published  by  M.  Gauvain  in  the  Jonrual 
des  Dibats  (September  20,  1919),  are  well  worth  reading. 

465 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OE  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

cupation  of  a  part  of  Germany  as  a  guaranty  for  the  ful- 
filment of  the  peace  conditions,  dispenses  Bulgaria  from 
any  such  irksome  conditions.  Bulgaria's  good  faith  ap- 
peared sufficient  to  the  politicians  who  drafted  the  instru- 
ment. "For  reasons  which  one  hardly  dares  touch 
upon,"  writes  an  eminent  French  publicist,^  "several  of 
the  Powers  that  constitute  the  famous  world  areopagus 
count  on  the  future  co-operation  of  Bulgaria.  We  shrink 
in  dismay  from  the  perspective  thus  opened  to  our  gaze."  ^ 

The  territorial  changes  which  the  Prussia  of  the 
Balkans  was  condemned  to  undergo  are  neither  very 
considerable  nor  unjust.  Rumania  receives  no  Bul- 
garian territory,  the  frontiers  of  19 13  remaining  unal- 
tered. Serbia  nets  some  on  grounds  which  cannot  be 
called  in  question,  and  a  large  part  of  Thrace  which  is  in- 
habited, not  by  Bulgars,  but  mainly  by  Greeks  and  Turlss, 
was  taken  from  Bulgaria,  but  allotted  to  no  state  in  par- 
ticular. The  upshot  of  the  Treaty,  as  it  appeared  to 
most  of  the  leading  publicists  on  the  Continent  of  Europe, 
was  to  leave  Bulgaria,  whose  cruelty  and  destructiveness 
are  described  by  official  and  unofficial  reports  as  unpar- 
alleled, in  a  position  of  economic  superiority  to  Serbia, 
Greece,  and  Rumania.  And  in  the  Inter-Allied  commis- 
sion Bulgaria  is  to  have  a  representative,  while  Serbia, 
Greece,  and  Rumania,  a  part  of  whose  stolen  property 
the  commission  has  to  recover,  will  have  none. 

A  comparison  between  the  indulgence  lavished  upon 
Bulgaria  and  the  severity  displayed  toward  Rumania  is 
calculated  to  disconcert  the  stanchest  friends  of  the 
Supreme  Council.  The  Rumanian  government,  in  a  dig- 
nitied  note  to  the  Conference,  explained  its  refusal  to  sign 
the  Treaty  with  Austria  by  enumerating  a  series  of  facts 
which  amount  to  a  scathing  condemnation  of  the  work 

1  M.  Augusle  Gauvain. 
■  Lc  Journal  des  Dcbcts,  September  20,  1919. 

466 


HIE    IREATV  WITH   BULGARIA 

of  the  Supreme  Council.  O'li  the  one  hand  the  Council 
pleaded  the  engagements  entered  into  between  Japan  and 
her  European  allies  as  a  cogent  motive  for  handing  over 
Shantung  to  Japan.  For  treaties  must  be  respected. 
And  the  argument  is  sound.  On  the  other  hand,  they 
were  bound  by  a  similar  treaty  ^  to  give  Rumania  the 
whole  Banat,  the  Rumanian  districts  of  Hungary  and  the 
Bukovina  as  far  as  the  river  Pruth.  But  at  the  Con- 
ference they  repudiated  this  engagement.  In  igi6  they 
stipulated  that  if  Rumania  entered  the  war  they  would 
co-operate  with  ample  military  forces.  They  failed  to 
redeem  their  promise.  And  they  further  undertook  that 
"Rumania  shall  have  the  same  rights  as  the  Allies  in  the 
peace  preliminaries  and  negotiations  and  also  in  discussing 
the  issues  which  shall  be  laid  before  the  Peace  Conference 
for  its  decisions."  Yet,  as  we  saw,  she  was  denied  these 
rights,  and  her  delegates  were  not  informed  of  the  sub- 
jects under  discussion  nor  allowed  to  see  the  terms  of 
peace,  which  were  in  the  hands  of  the  enemies,  and  were 
only  twice  admitted  to  the  presence  of  the  Supreme 
Council. 

It  has  been  observed  in  various  countries  and  by  the 
Allied  and  the  neutral  press  that  between  the  German 
view  about  the  sacredness  of  treaties  and  that  of  the 
Supreme  Council  there  is  no  substantial  difference.^ 
Comments  of  this  nature  are  all  the  more  distressing  that 
they  cannot  be  thrust  aside  as  calumnious.  Again  it  will 
not  be  denied  that  Rumania  rendered  inestimable  ser- 
vices to  the  Allies.  She  sacrificed  three  hundred  thousand 
of  her  sons  to  their  cause.  Her  soil  was  invaded  and  her 
property  stolen  or  ruined.  Yet  she  has  been  deprived 
of  part  of  her  sovereignty  by  the  Allies  to  whom  she  gave 
this  help.     The  Supreme  Council,  not  content  with  her 

1  Concluded  in  the  year  1916. 

-  Cf.  The  Daily  Mail  (Paris  edition),  September  21,  1919. 

31  467 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

law  conferring  equal  rights  on  all  her  citizens,  to  what- 
ever race  or  religion  they  may  belong,  ordered  her  to 
submit  to  the  direction  of  a  foreign  board  in  everything 
concerning  her  minorities  and  demanded  from  her  a 
promise  of  obedience  in  advance  to  their  future  decrees 
respecting  her  policy  in  matters  of  international  trade 
and  transit.  These  stipulations  constitute  a  noteworthy 
curtailment  of  her  sovereignty. 

That  any  set  of  public  men  should  be  carried  by  ex- 
trinsical motives  thus  far  away  from  justice,  fair  play, 
and  good  faith  would  be  a  misfortune  under  any  cir- 
cumstances, but  that  at  a  conjuncture  like  the  present  it 
should  befall  the  men  who  set  up  as  the  moral  guides  of 
mankind  and  wield  the  power  to  loosen  the  fabric  of 
society  is  indeed  a  dire  disaster. 


XVI 

THE    COVENANT  AND   MINORITIES 

IN  Mr.  Wilson's  scheme  for  the  estabhshment  of  a 
society  of  nations  there  was  nothing  new  but  his 
pledge  to  have  it  realized.  And  that  pledge  has  still  to 
be  redeemed  under  conditions  which  he  himself  has  made 
much  more  unfavorable  than  they  were.  The  idea  itself 
— floating  in  the  political  atmosphere  for  ages — has  come 
to  seem  less  vague  and  unattainable  since  the  days  of 
Kant.  The  only  heads  of  states  who  had  set  themselves 
to  embody  it  in  institutions  before  President  Wilson  took 
it  up  not  only  disappointed  the  peoples  who  believed  in 
them,  but  discredited  the  idea  itself. 

That  a  merely  mechanical  organization  such  as  the 
American  statesman  seems  to  have  had  in  mind,  formed 
by  parliamentary  politicians  deliberating  in  secret,  could 
bind  nations  and  peoples  together  in  moral  fellowship,  is 
conceivable  in  the  abstract.  But  if  we  turn  to  the  reality, 
we  shall  find  that  in  that  direction  nothing  durable  can 
be  effected  without  a  radical  change  in  the  ideas,  aspira- 
tions, and  temper  of  the  leaders  who  speak  for  the  nations 
to-day,  and,  indeed,  in  those  of  large  sections  of  the 
nations  themselves.  For  to  organize  society  on  those 
unfamiliar  lines  is  to  modify  some  of  the  deepest-rooted 
instincts  of  human  nature.  And  that  cannot  be  achieved 
overnight,  certainly  not  in  the  span  of  thirty  minutes, 
which  sufficed  for  the  drafting  of  the  Covenant.  The 
bulk  of  mankind  might  not  need  to  be  converted,  but 

469 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

whole  classes  must  first  be  educated,  ana  in  some  coun- 
tries re-educated,  which  is  perhaps  still  more  difficult. 
Mental  and  moral  training  must  complement  and  rein- 
force each  other,  and  each  political  unit  be  brought  to 
realize  that  the  interests  of  the  vaster  community  take 
precedence  over  those  of  any  part  of  it.  And  to  impress 
these  novel  views  upon  the  peoples  of  the  world  takes 
time. 

An  indispensable  condition  of  success  is  that  the  com- 
pact binding  the  members  together  must  be  entered  into 
by  the  peoples,  not  merely  by  their  governments.  For 
it  is  upon  the  masses  that  the  burden  of  the  war  lies 
heaviest.  It  is  the  bulk  of  the  population  that  supplies 
the  soldiers,  the  money,  and  the  work  for  the  belligerent 
states,  and  endures  the  hardships  and  makes  the  sacrifices 
requisite  to  sustain  it.  Therefore,  the  peoples  are  pri- 
marily interested  in  the  abolition  of  the  old  ordering  and 
the  forging  of  the  new.  Moreover,  as  latter-day  cam- 
paigns are  waged  with  all  the  resources  of  the  warring 
peoples,  and  as  the  possession  of  certain  of  these  resources 
is  often  both  the  cause  of  the  conflict  and  the  objective 
of  the  aggressor,  it  follows  that  no  mere  political  enact- 
ments will  meet  contemporary  requirements.  An  asso- 
ciation of  nations  renouncing  the  sword  as  a  means  of 
settling  disputes  must  also  reduce  as  far  as  possible  the 
surface  over  which  friction  with  its  neighbors  is  likely  to 
take  place.  And  nowadays  most  of  that  surface  is  eco- 
nomic. The  possession  of  raw  materials  is  a  more  potent 
attraction  than  territorial  aggrandizement.  Indeed,  the 
latter  is  coveted  mainly  as  a  means  of  secu-ing  or  safe- 
guarding the  former.  On  these  and  other  grounds,  in 
drawing  up  a  charter  for  a  society  of  nations,  the  political 
aspect  should  play  but  a  subsidiary  part.  In  Paris  it 
was  the  only  aspect  that  counted  for  anything. 

A  parliament  of  peoples,  then,  is  the  only  organ  that  can 

470 


THE  COVENANT  AND  MINORITIES 

impart  viability  to  a  society  of  nations  worthy  of  the 
name.  By  joining  the  Covenant  with  the  Peace  Treaty, 
and  turning  the  former  into  an  instrument  for  the  execu- 
tion of  the  latter,  thus  subordinating  the  ideal  to  the  ego- 
tistical, Mr.  Wilson  deprived  his  plan  of  its  sole  justifica- 
tion, and  for  the  time  being  buried  it.  The  philosopher 
Lichtenberg  '  wrote,  "One  man  brings  forth  a  thought, 
another  holds  it  over  the  baptismal  font,  the  third  begets 
offspring  with  it,  the  fourth  stands  at  its  deathbed,  and 
the  fifth  buries  it."  Mr.  Wilson  has  discharged  the  func- 
tions of  gravedigger  to  the  idea  of  a  pacific  society  of 
nations,  just  as  Lenin  has  done  to  the  system  of  Marxism, 
the  only  difference  being  that  Marxism  is  as  dead  as  a 
door-nail,  whereas  the  society  of  nations  may  rise  again. 

It  was  open,  then,  to  the  three  principal  delegates  to 
insure  the  peace  of  the  world  by  moral  means  or  by  force. 
Having  eschewed  the  former  by  adopting  the  doctrines  of 
Monroe,  abandoning  the  freedom  of  the  seas,  and  by 
according  to  France  strategic  frontiers  and  other  privi- 
leges of  the  militarist  order,  they  might  have  enlarged 
and  systematized  these  concessions  to  expediency  and 
forged  an  alliance  of  the  three  states  or  of  two,  and  under- 
taken to  keep  peace  on  the  planet  against  all  marplots. 
I  wrote  at  the  time:  "The  delegates  are  becoming  con- 
scious of  the  existence  of  a  ready-made  league  of  nations 
in  the  shape  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  states,  which,  together 
\\ith  France,  might  hinder  wars,  promote  good-fellowship, 
remold  human  destinies;  and  they  are  delighted  thus  to 
possess  solid  foundations  on  which  a  noble  edifice  can  be 
raised  in  the  fullness  of  time.  Tribunals  will  be  created, 
with  full  powers  to  adjudge  disputes;  facilities  will  be 
accorded  to  litigious  states,  and  even  an  obligation  will 
be  imposed  to  invoke  their  arbitration.     And  the  sum 


'  A  contemporary  of  Goethe.    His  works  were  republished  by  Herzog  in 
the  year  1907. 

471 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

total  of  these  reforms  will  be  known  to  contemporary 
annals  as  an  inchoate  League  of  Nations.  The  delegates 
are  already  modestly  disavowing  the  intention  of  realiz- 
ing the  ideal  in  all  its  parts.  That  must  be  left  to  coming 
generations;  but  what  with  the  exhaustion  of  the  peoples, 
their  aversion  from  warfare,  and  the  material  obstacles 
to  the  renewal  of  hostilities  in  the  near  future,  it  is  calcu- 
lated that  the  peace  will  not  soon  be  violated.  Whether 
more  salient  results  will  be  attained  or  attempted  by  the 
Conference  nobody  can  foretell."  ^ 

This  expedient,  even  had  it  been  deliberately  conceived 
and  skilfully  wrought  out,  would  not  have  been  an 
adequate  solution  of  the  world's  difficulties,  nor  would  it 
have  commended  itself  to  all  the  states  concerned.  But 
it  would  at  least  have  been  a  temporary  makeshift 
capable  of  being  transmuted  under  favorable  circum- 
stances into  something  less  material  and  more  durable. 
But  the  amateur  world-reformers  could  not  make  up 
their  minds  to  choose  either  alternative.  And  the  result 
is  one  of  the  most  lamentable  failures  recorded  in  human 
history. 

I  placed  my  own  opinion  on  record  at  the  time  as 
frankly  as  the  censorship  which  still  existed  for  me  would 
permit.  I  wrote:  "What  every  delegate  with  sound 
political  instinct  will  ask  himself  is,  whether  the  League 
of  Nations  will  eliminate  wars  in  future,  and,  if  not,  he 
will  feel  conscientiously  bound  to  adopt  other  relatively 
sure  means  of  providing  against  them,  and  these  consist 
of  alliances,  strategic  frontiers,  and  the  permanent  dis- 
ablement of  the  potential  enemy.  On  one  or  other  of 
these  alternative  lines  the  resettlement  must  be  devised. 
To  combine  them  would  be  ruinous.  Now  of  what  prac- 
tical use  is  a  league  of  nations  devoid  of  supernational 
forces  and  faced  by  a  numerous,  virile,  and  united  race, 

*  The  Daily  Telegraph,  January  28,  1919. 

472 


THE  COVENANT  AND  MINORITIES 

smarting  under  a  sense  of  injustice,  thirsting  for  the  op- 
portunities for  development  denied  to  it,  but  granted  to 
nations  which  it  despises  as  inferior?  Would  a  league 
of  nations  combine  militarily  against  the  gradual  en- 
croachments or  sudden  aggression  of  that  Power  against 
its  weaker  neighbors?  Nobody  is  authorized  to  answer 
this  question  afifirmatively.  To-day  the  Powers  cannot 
agree  to  intervene  against  Bolshevism,  which  they 
deem  a  scourge  of  the  world,  nor  can  they  agree  to 
tolerate  it. 

"In  these  circumstances,  what  compelling  motives  can 
be  laid  before  those  delegates  who  are  asked  to  dispense 
with  strategic  frontiers  and  rely  upon  a  league  of  nations 
for  their  defense?  Take  France's  outlook.  Peace  once  con- 
cluded, she  will  be  confronted  with  a  secular  enemy  who 
numbers  some  seventy  millions  to  her  forty-five  millions. 
In  ten  years  the  disproportion  will  be  still  greater.  Discon- 
tented Russia  is  almost  certain  to  be  taken  in  hand  by 
Germany,  befriended,  reorganized,  exploited,  and  enlisted 
as  an  ally."  ^ 

Conscious  of  these  reefs  and  shoals,  the  French  govern- 
ment, which  was  at  first  contemptuous  of  the  Wilsonian 
scheme,  discerned  the  use  it  might  be  put  to  as  a  military 
safeguard,  and  sought  to  convert  it  into  that.  "The 
French,"  wrote  a  Francophil  English  journal  published  in 
Paris,  "would  like  the  League  to  maintain  what  may  be 
called  a  permanent  military  general  staff.  The  duties 
of  this  organization  would  be  to  keep  a  hawklike  eye  on 
the  misdemeanors,  actual  or  threatened,  of  any  state  or 
group  of  states,  and  to  be  empowered  with  authority  to 
call  into  instant  action  a  great  international  military  force 
for  the  frustration  or  suppression  of  such  aggression. 
The  French  have  frankly  in  mind  the  possibility  that  an 
unrepentant    and    unregenerate    Germany    is    the   most 

'  The  Daily  Telegraph,  January  31,  191 9. 

473 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

likely  menace  not  only  to  the  security  of  France,  but  to 
the  peace  of  the  world  in  general. "  ^ 

And  other  states  cherished  analogous  hopes.  The 
spirit  of  right  and  justice  was  to  be  evoked  like  the 
spirit  that  served  Aladdin,  and  to  be  compelled  to  enter  the 
service  of  nationalism  and  militarism,  and  accomplish 
the  task  of  armies. 

The  paramount  Powers  prescribed  the  sacrifices  of  sov- 
ereignty which  membership  of  the  League  necessitated, 
and  forthwith  dispensed  themselves  from  making  them. 
The  United  States  government  maintained  its  Monroe 
Doctrine  for  America — nay,  it  went  farther  and  identified 
its  interests  with  the  Hay  doctrine  for  the  Far  East.^ 
It  decided  to  construct  a  powerful  navy  for  the  defense 
of  these  political  assets,  and  to  give  the  youth  of  the 
country  a  semi-military  training.^  Defense  presupposes 
attack.  War,  therefore,  is  not  excluded — nay,  it  is  ad- 
mitted by  the  world-reformers,  and  preparations  for  it  are 
indispensable.  Equally  so  are  the  burdens  of  taxation. 
But  if  liljcrty  of  defense  be  one  of  the  rights  of  two  or  three 
Powers,  by  what  law  is  it  confined  to  them  and  denied 
to  the  others?  Why  should  the  other  communities  be 
constrained  to  remain  open  to  attack?  Sarely  they,  too, 
deserve  to  live  and  thrive,  and  mals-e  the  most  of  their 
opportunities.  Now  if  in  lieu  of  a  misnamed  League  of 
Nations  we  had  an  Anglo-Saxon  board  for  the  better 
government  of  the  world,  these  unequal  weights  and 
measures  would  be  intelligible  on  the  principle  that  special 

1  The  Daily  Mail  (Paris  edition),  February  13,  191 9. 

"  State-Secretary  Hay  addressed  a  note  to  the  Powers  in  September,  1899, 
setting  forth  America's  attitude  toward  China.  It  is  known  as  the  doctrine 
of  the  "open  door."  In  a  subsequent  note  (July  3,  1900)  he  enlarged  its 
scope  and  promulgated  the  integrity  of  China.  But  Russia  ignored  it  and 
flew  her  flag  over  the  Chinese  customs  in  Newchwang.  It  was  Japan  who, 
on  that  occasion,  asserted  and  enforced  the  doctrine  without  outside  help. 

3  General  March  intimated,  when  testifying  before  tlie  House  Military 
Committee,  that  President  Wilson  approved  of  universal  training,  indorsing 
the  War  Department's  array  program.— iVt'ic  York  Herald  (Paris  edition). 

474 


THE  COVENANT  AND  MINORITIES 

obligations  and  responsibilities  warrant  exceptional  rights. 
But  no  such  plea  can  be  advanced  under  an  arrangement 
professing  to  be  a  society  of  free  nations.  All  that  can 
with  truth  be  said  is  what  M.  Clemenceau  told  the  dele- 
gates of  the  lesser  states  at  the  opening  of  the  Conference — ■ 
that  the  three  great  belligerents  represent  twelve  million 
soldiers  and  that  their  supreme  authority  derives  from 
that.  The  role  of  the  other  peoples  is  to  listen  to  the 
behests  of  their  guardians,  and  to  accept  and  execute  them 
without  murmur.     Might  is  still  a  source  of  right. 

It  is  fair  to  say  that  the  disclosure  of  the  true  base  of 
the  new  ordering,  as  blurted  out  by  M.  Clemenceau  at 
that  historic  meeting,  caused  little  surj^rise  among  the 
initiated.  For  there  was  no  reason  to  assume  that  he,  or, 
indeed,  the  bulk  of  the  continental  statesmen,  were  con- 
verts to  a  doctrine  of  which  its  own  apostle  accepted  only 
those  fragments  which  commended  themselves  to  his 
country  or  his  party.  Had  not  the  French  Premier 
scoffed  at  the  League  in  public  as  in  private?  Had  he 
not  said  in  the  Chamber:  "I  do  not  believe  that  the 
Society  of  Nations  constitutes  the  necessary  conclusion 
of  the  present  war.  I  will  give  you  one  of  my  reasons. 
Il  is  this:  if  to-morrow  you  were  to  propose  to  me  that 
Germany  should  enter  into  this  society  I  would  not 
consent."  ^ 

"I  am  certain,"  wrote  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  ardent 
champions  of  the  League  in  France,  Senator  d'Estournelles 
de  Constant — ' '  I  am  certain  that  he  [M.  Clemenceau]  made 
an  effort  against  himself,  against  his  entire  past,  against 
his  whole  life,  against  all  his  convictions,  to  serve  the 
Society  of  Nations.  And  his  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs 
followed  him."  -  Exactly.  And  as  with  M.  Clemenceau, 
so  it  was  with  the  majority  of  European  statesmen ;  most 

'  Bulletin  des  Droits  de  rilomme,  No.  lo,  May  15,  1919. 
^Journal  Officiel,  November  21,  1917. 

475 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

of  them  made  strenuous  and,  one  may  add,  successful 
efforts  against  their  convictions.  And  the  result  was 
inevitable. 

"The  governments,"  we  read  in  the  organ  of  syndical- 
ists, who  had  supported  Mr.  Wilson  as  long  as  they  be- 
lieved him  determined  to  redeem  his  promises— "  the 
governments  have  acquiesced  in  the  Fourteen  Points.  .  .  . 
Hypocrisy.  Each  one  cherished  mental  reservations. 
Virtue  was  exalted  and  vice  practised.  The  poltroon 
eulogized  heroism;  the  imperialist  lauded  the  spirit  of 
justice.  For  the  past  month  we  have  been  picking  up 
ideas  about  the  worth  of  the  adhesions  to  the  Fourteen 
Points,  and  never  before  has  a  more  sinister  or  a  more 
odious  comedy  been  played.  Territorial  demands  have 
been  heaved  one  upon  the  other;  contempt  of  the  rights 
of  peoples — the  only  right  that  we  can  recognize — has 
been  expressed  in  striking  terms;  the  last  restraints  have 
vanished;  the  masks  have  fallen."^ 

From  every  country  in  Europe  the  same  judgment 
came  pitched  in  varying  keys.  The  Italian  press  con- 
demned the  proceedings  of  the  Conference  in  language 
to  the  full  as  strong  as  that  of  the  German  or  Austrian 
journals.  The  Stampa  affirmed  that  those  who,  like 
Bissolati,  were  in  the  beginning  for  placing  their  trust  In 
one  of  the  two  coteries  at  the  Conference  were  guilty  of  a 
fatal  mistake.  "The  mistake  lay  in  their  belief  in  the 
ideal  strivings  of  one  of  the  parties,  and  in  the  horror 
with  which  the  cupidity  of  the  others  was  contemplated, 
whereas  both  of  them  were  fighting  for  .  .  .  their  inter- 
ests. ...  In  verity  France  was  no  less  militarist  or 
absolutist  than  Germany,  nor  was  England  less  avid  than 
either.  And  the  proof  is  enshrined  in  the  peace  treaties 
which  have  masked  the  results  of  their  respective  vic- 
tories.    Versailles  is  a  Brest-Litovsk,  aggravated  in  the 

'  Le  Populaire,  February  lo,  1919- 

476 


THE  COVENANT  AND  MINORITIES 

same  proportion  as  the  victor}'  of  the  Entente  over  Ger- 
many, is  more  complete  than  was  that  of  Germany  over 
Russia.  Cupidity  does  not  alter  its  character,  even  when 
it  seeks  to  conceal  itself  under  a  Phnigian  cap  rather  than 
wear  a  helmet."  ^  o 

M.  Clemenceau's  opening  utterance  about  the  twelve 
million  men,  and  the  unlimited  right  which  such  formi- 
dable armies  confer  on  their  possessors  to  sit  in  judgment 
on  the  tribes  and  peoples  of  the  planet,  was  the  true 
keynote  to  the  Conference.  After  that  the  leading  states- 
men trimmed  their  ship,  touched  the  rudder,  and  sailed 
toward  downright  absolutism. 

The  effect  of  such  utterances  and  acts  on  the  minds  of 
the  peoples  are  distinctly  mischievous.  For  they  tend 
to  obliterate  the  sense  of  public  right,  which  is  the  main 
foundation  of  international  intercourse  among  progressive 
nations. 

And  already  it  had  been  shaken  and  weakened  by  the 
campaigns  of  the  past  fifty  years,  and  in  particular  by  the 
last  war.  In  the  relations  of  nation  to  nation  there  were 
certain  principles — derivatives  of  ethics  diluted  with 
maxims  of  expediency — w^hich  kept  the  various  govern- 
ments from  too  flagrant  breaches  of  faith.  These  checks 
were  the  only  substitute  for  morality  in  politics.  Their 
highest  power  was  connoted  by  the  word  Europeanism, 
which  stood  for  a  supposed  feeling  of  solidarity  among  all 
the  peoples  of  the  old  Continent,  and  for  a  certain  respect 
for  the  treaties  on  which  the  state-system  reposed.  But 
it  existed  mainly  among  defeated  nations  when  appre- 
hensive of  being  isolated  or  chastised  by  their  victors. 
None  the  less,  the  idea  marked  a  certain  advance  toward 
an  ethical  bond  of  union. 

Now  this  embryonic  sense,  together  with  respect  for 
the  binding  force  of  a  nation's  plighted  troth,  were  num- 

1  La  Slampa,  June  ii,  1919.     Cf.  L'Humanite,  June  13,  1919. 

477 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

bered  by  the  demoralizing  influence  of  the  wars  of  the  last 
fifty  years.  And  one  of  the  first  and  peremptory  needs 
of  the  world  was  their  restoration.  This  could  be  ef- 
fected only  by  bringing  the  peoples,  not  merely  of  Eu- 
rope, but  of  the  world,  more  closely  together,  by  en- 
grafting on  them  a  feeling  of  close  solidarity,  and  impress- 
ing them  with  the  necessity  of  making  common  cause  in 
the  one  struggle  worth  their  while  waging — resistance  to 
the  forces  that  militate  against  human  welfare  and 
progress.  The  feeling  was  widespread  that  the  way  to 
effect  this  was  by  some  form  of  internationalism,  by  the 
broadening,  deepening,  and  quickening  all  that  was  im- 
plied by  Europeanism,  by  co-ordinating  the  collective 
energies  of  all  progressive  peoples,  and  causing  them  to 
converge  toward  a  common  and  worthy  goal.  For  the 
working  classes  this  conception  r'n  a  restricted  form  had 
long  possessed  a  commanding  attraction.  What  they 
aimed  at,  however,  was  no  more  than  the  catholicity  of 
labor.  They  fancied  that  after  the  passage  of  the  tidal 
wave  of  destructiveness  the  ground  was  cleared  of  most 
of  the  obstacles  which  had  encumbered  it,  and  that  the 
forward  advance  might  begin  forthwith. 

What  they  failed  to  take  sufficiently  into  account  was 
the  vis  ineriice,  the  survival  of  the  old  spirit  among  the 
ruling  orders  whose  members  continued  to  live  and  move 
in  the  atmosphere  of  use  and  wont,  and  the  spirit  of  hate 
and  bitterness  infused  into  all  the  political  classes,  to 
dispel  which  was  a  herculean  task.  It  was  exclusively 
to  the  leaders  of  those  classes  that  Mr.  Wilson  confided 
the  realization  of  the  abstract  idea  of  a  society  of  nations, 
which  he  may  at  first  have  pictured  to  himself  as  a  vast 
family  conscious  of  common  interests,  bent  on  moral  and 
material  self-betterment,  and  willing  to  eschew  such 
partial  advantages  as  might  hinder  or  retard  the  general 
progress.     But,  judging  by  his  attitude  and  his  action, 

478 


THE   COVENANT  AND  MINORITIES 

he  had  no  real  acquaintance  with  the  materials  out  of 
which  it  must  be  fashioned,  no  notion  of  the  difficulties 
to  be  met,  and  no  staying  power  to  encounter  and  sur- 
mount them.  And  his  first  move  entailed  the  failure  of 
the  scheme. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Mr.  Wilson  came  to  the  Conference 
with  a  home-made  charter  for  the  Society  of  Nations, 
which,  according  to  the  evidence  of  Mr.  Lansing,  "was 
never  pressed."  The  State  Secretary  added  that  "the 
present  league  Covenant  is  superior  to  the  American 
plan."  And  as  for  the  Fourteen  Points,  "They  were  not 
even  discussed  at  the  Conference."  ^  Suspecting  as  much, 
I  wrote  at  the  time:  ^  "The  President  has  pinned  himself 
down  to  no  concrete  scheme  whatever.  His  method  is 
electric,  choosing  what  is  helpful  and  beneficent  in  the 
projects  of  others,  and  endeavoring  to  obtain  from  the 
dissentients  a  renunciation  of  ideas  belonging  to  the  old 
national  currents  and  adherence  to  the  doctrines  he  deems 
salutary.  It  is,  however,  already  clear  that  the  highest 
ideal  now  attainable  is  not  a  league  of  nations  as  the 
masses  understand  it,  which  will  abolish  wars  and  like- 
wise put  an  end  to  the  costly  preparations  for  them,  but 
only  a  coalition  of  victorious  nations,  which  may  hope, 
by  dint  of  economic  inducements  and  deterrents,  to  draw 
the  enemy  peoples  into  its  camp  in  the  not  too  distant 
future.  This  result  would  fall  very  short  of  the  expecta- 
tions aroused  by  the  far-resonant  promises  made  at  the 
outset;  but  even  it  will  be  unattainable  without  an 
international  compact  binding  all  the  members  of  the 
coalition  to  make  war  simultaneously  upon  the  nation 
or  group  of  nations  which  ventures  to  break  the  peace. 
I  am  disposed  to  believe  that  nothing  less  than  such  an 
express  covenant  will  be  regarded  by  the  continental 

1  Cf.  TJie  Chicago  Tribune  (Paris  edition),  Augitst  27,  19 1 9. 
*  In  The  Daily  Telegraph,  February  8,  1919. 

170 


1  HE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

Powers  of  the  Entente  as  an  adequate  substitute  for 
certain  territorial  readjustments  which  they  otherwise 
consider  essential  to  secure  them  from  sudden  attack. 

"Whether  such  a  condition  would  prevent  future 
wars  is  a  question  that  only  experience  can  answer. 
Personally,  I  am  profoundly  convinced,  with  Mr.  Taft, 
that  a  genuine  league  of  nations  must  have  teeth  in  the 
guise  of  supernational,  not  international,  forces.  In 
these  remarks  I  make  abstraction  from  the  larger  question 
which  wholly  absorbs  this — namely,  whether  the  masses 
for  whose  behoof  the  lavish  expenditure  of  time,  energy, 
and  ingenuity  is  undertaken,  will  accept  a  coalition  of 
victorious  governments  against  unregenerate  peoples  as  a 
substitute  for  the  Society  of  Nations  as  at  first  conceived." 

The  supposed  object  of  the  League  was  the  substitution 
of  right  for  force,  by  debarring  each  individual  state  from 
employing  violence  against  any  of  the  others,  and  by  the 
use  of  arbitration  as  a  means  of  settling  disputes.  This 
entails  the  suppression  of  the  right  to  declare  war  and  to 
prepare  for  it,  and,  as  a  corollary,  a  system  of  deterrents 
to  hinder,  and  of  penalties  to  punish  rebellion  on  the  part 
of  a  community.  That  in  those  cases  where  the  law  is 
set  at  naught  efficacious  means  should  be  available  to 
enforce  it  will  hardly  be  denied;  but  whether  economic 
pressure  would  suffice  in  all  cases  is  doubtful.  To  me  it 
seems  that  without  a  supernational  army,  under  the 
direct  orders  of  the  League,  it  might  under  conceivable 
circumstances  become  impossible  to  uphold  the  decisions 
of  the  tribunal,  and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  the  coexist- 
ence of  such  a  military  force  with  national  armaments 
would  condemn  the  undertaking  to  failure. 

An  analysis  of  the  Covenant  lies  beyond  the  limits  of 
my  task,  but  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  point  out  a  few  of  its 
inherent  defects.  One  of  the  principal  organs  of  the 
League  will  be  the  Assembly  and  the  Council.    The 

480 


THE  COVENANT  AND  MINORiriES 

former,  a  veiy  numerous  and  mainly  political  body,  will 
necessarily  be  out  of  touch  with  the  peoples,  their  needs 
and  their  aspirations.  It  will  meet  at  most  three  or 
four  times  a  year.  And  its  members  alone  will  be  invested 
with  all  the  power,  which  they  will  be  chary  of  delegating. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Council,  consisting  at  first  of  nine 
members,  will  meet  at  least  once  a  year.  The  members 
of  both  bodies  will  presumably  be  appointed  by  the 
governments,^  who  will  certainly  not  renounce  their 
sovereignty  in  a  matter  that  concerns  them  so  closely. 
Such  a  system  may  be  wise  and  conducive  to  the  highest 
aims,  but  it  can  hardly  be  termed  democratic.  The 
military  Powers  who  command  twelve  million  soldiers  will 
possess  a  majority  in  the  Council. ^  The  Secretariat  alone 
will  be  permanent,  and  will  naturally  be  appointed  by 
the  Great  Powers. 

Instead  of  abolishing  war,  the  Conference  described 
its  abolition  as  beyond  the  power  of  man  to  compass. 
Disarmament,  which  was  to  have  been  one  of  its  main 
achievements,  is  eliminated  from  the  Covenant.  As  the 
war  that  was  to  have  been  the  last  will  admittedly  be 
followed  by  others,  the  delegates  of  the  Great  Powers 
worked  conscientiously,  as  behooved  patriotic  statesmen, 
to  obtain  in  advance  all  possible  advantages  for  their 
respective  countries  by  way  of  preparing  for  it.  The 
new  order,  which  in  theory  reposes  upon  right,  justice, 
and  moral  fellowship,  in  reality  depends  upon  powerful 
armies  and  navies.  France  must  remain  under  arms, 
seeing  that  she  has  to  keep  watch  on  the  Rhine.  Britain 
and  the  United  States  are  to  go  on  building  warships  and 
aircraft,  besides  training  their  youth  for  the  coming 
Armageddon.  The  article  of  the  Covenant  which  lays 
it  down  that  "the  members  of  the  League  recognize  that 

1  The  Covenant  leaves  the  mode  of  recruiting  them  undetermined. 
■  Article  IV. 

481 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

the  maintenance  of  peace  requires  the  reduction  of 
national  armaments  to  the  lowest  point  consistent  with 
national  safety,"  ^  is,  to  use  a  Russian  simile,  written 
on  water  with  a  fork.  Britain,  France,  and  the  United 
States  are  already  agreed  that  they  will  combine  to  repel 
unprovoked  aggression  on  the  part  of  Germany.  That 
evidently  signifies  that  they  will  hold  themselves  ixi  readi- 
ness to  fight,  and  will  therefore  make  due  preparation. 
This  arrangement  is  a  substitute  for  a  supernational  army, 
as  though  prevention  were  not  better  than  cure;  that 
it  will  prove  efficacious  in  the  long  run  very  few  believe. 
One  clear- visioned  Frenchman  writes:  "The  inefficacy 
of  the  organization  aimed  at  by  the  Conference  constrains 
France  to  live  in  continual  and  increasing  insecurity, 
owing  to  the  falling  off  of  her  population."  -  He  adds: 
"It  follows  from  this  abortive  expedient — if  it  is  to 
remain  definitive — that  each  member-state  must  protect 
itself,  or  come  to  terms  with  the  more  powerful  ones,  a.s 
in  the  past.  Consequently  we  are  in  presence  of  the 
maintenance  of  militarism  and  the  regime  of  armaments."  ^ 
This  writer  goes  farther  and  accuses  Mr.  Wilson  of  having 
played  into  the  hands  of  Britain.  "President  Wilson," 
he  affirms,  "has  more  or  less  sacrificed  to  the  English 
government  the  society  of  nations  and  the  question 
of  armaments,  that  of  the  colonies  and  that  of  the  free- 
dom of  the  seas.  .  .  ."^  This,  however,  is  an  over-state- 
ment. It  was  not  for  the  sake  of  Britain  that  the  Ameri- 
can statesman  gave  up  so  much;  it  was  for  the  sake  of 
saving  something  of  the  Covenant.  It  was  in  the  spirit 
of  Sir  Boyle  Roche,  whose  attachment  to  the  British 
Constitution  was  such  that,  to  save  a  part  of  it,  he  was 
willing  to  sacrifice  the  whole. 

1  Article  VIII. 

"^  M.  d'Estournelles  de  Constant,  Bulletin  des  Droits  dc  rilonvnc,  May 

15.  191 9,  P-  450. 
Ubid.  Ubid.,i).  457. 

482 


THE  COVENANT  AND  MINORITIES 

The  arl)itration  of  disputes  is  provided  for  by  one  of  the 
articles  of  the  Covenant; '  but  the  parties  may  go  to  war 
three  months  later  with  a  clear  conscience  and  an  appeal 
to  right,  justice,  self-determination,  and  the  usual  ab- 
stract nouns. 

In  a  word,  the  directors  of  the  Conference  disciplined 
their  political  intelligence  on  lines  of  self-hypnotization, 
along  which  common  sense  finds  it  impossible  to  follow 
them.  There  were  also  among  the  delegates  men  who 
thought  and  spoke  in  terms  of  reason  and  logic,  but  their 
voices  evoked  no  echo.  One  of  them  summed  up  his 
criticism  somewhat  as  follows: 

"During  the  war  our  professions  of  democratic  prin- 
ciples were  far  resonant  and  emphatic.  We  were  fighting 
for  the  nations  of  the  world,  especially  for  those  who  could 
not  successfully  fight  for  themselves.  All  the  peoples, 
great  and  small,  were  exhorted  to  make  the  most  painful 
sacrifices  to  enable  their  respective  governments  to  con- 
quer the  enemy.  Victory  unexpectedly  smiled  on  us, 
and  the  peoples  asked  that  those  promises  should  be  made 
good.  Naturally,  expectations  ran  high.  What  has  hap- 
pened ?  The  governments  now  answer  in  effect :  '  We  will 
promote  your  interests,  but  without  your  co-operation  or 
assent.  We  will  make  the  necessary  arrangements  in 
secret  behind  closed  doors.  The  machinery  we  are  de- 
vising will  be  a  state  machinery,  not  a  popular  one.  All 
that  we  ask  of  you  is  implicit  trust.  You  complain  of  our 
action  in  the  past.  You  have  good  cause.  You  say  that 
the  same  men  are  about  to  determine  your  future.  Again 
you  are  right.  But  when  you  affirm  that  we  are  sure  to 
make  the  like  mistakes,  you  are  wrong,  and  we  ask  you  to 
take  our  word  for  it.  You  complain  that  we  are  politi- 
cians who  feel  the  weight  of  certain  commitments  and  the 
fetters  of  obsolete  traditions  from  which  we  cannot  free 

» Article  XII. 
32  483 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

ourselves;  that  we  are  mainly  concerned  to  protect  and 
further  the  interests  of  our  respective  countries,  and  that 
it  is  inconceivable  we  should  devise  an  organization  which 
looks  above  and  beyond  those  interests.  We  ask  you, 
are  you  willing,  then,  to  abandon  the  heritage  of  our 
fathers  to  the  foreigner?' 

"That  the  downtrodden  peoples  in  Austria  and  Ger- 
many have  been  emancipated  is  a  moral  triumph.  But 
why  has  the  beneficent  principle  that  is  said  to  have  in- 
spired the  deed  been  restricted  in  its  application?  Why 
has  the  experiment  been  tried  only  in  the  enemies'  coun- 
tries? Or  are  things  quite  in  order  ever5rwhere  else?  Is 
there  no  injustice  in  other  quarters  of  the  globe?  Are 
there  no  complaints  ?  If  there  be,  why  are  they  ignored  ? 
Is  it  because  all  acts  of  oppression  are  to  be  perpetuated 
which  do  not  take  place  in  the  enemy's  land?  What 
about  Ireland  and  about  a  dozen  other  countries  and 
peoples  ?    Are  they  skeletons  not  to  be  touched  ? 

"By  debarring  the  masses  from  participation  in  a 
grandiose  scheme,  the  success  of  which  depends  upon 
their  assent,  the  governments  are  indirectly  but  surely 
encouraging  secret  combined  opposition,  and  in  some 
cases  Bolshevism.  The  masses  resent  being  treated  as 
children  after  having  been  appealed  to  as  arbiters  and 
rescuers.  For  four  and  a  half  years  it  was  they  who  bore 
the  brunt  of  the  war,  they  who  sacrificed  their  sons  and 
their  substance.  In  the  future  it  is  they  to  whom  the  states 
will  look  for  the  further  sacrifices  in  blood  and  treasure 
which  will  be  necessary  in  the  struggles  which  they  evi- 
dently anticipate.  Well,  some  of  them  refuse  these  sac- 
rifices in  advance.  They  challenge  the  right  of  the  gov- 
ernments to  retain  the  power  of  making  war  and  peace. 
That  power  they  are  working  to  get  into  their  own  hands 
and  to  wield  in  their  own  Avay,  or  at  any  rate  to  have  a 
say  in  its  exercise.     And  in  order  to  secure  it,  some  sec- 

484 


THF  COVENANT  AND  MINORITIES 

tions  of  the  j^eoples  are  making  common  cause  with  the 
socialist  revokitionaries,  while  others  have  gone  the  length 
of  Bolshevism.  And  that  is  a  serious  danger.  The  agi- 
tation now  going  on  among  the  people,  therefore,  starts 
with  a  grievance.  The  masses  have  many  other  griev- 
ances besides  the  one  just  sketched — the  survivals  of  the 
feudal  age,  the  privileges  of  class,  the  inequality  of  oppor- 
tunity. And  the  kernel  formed  by  these  is  the  element  of 
truth  and  equity  which  imparts  force  to  all  those  under- 
ground movements,  and  enables  them  to  subsist  and  ex- 
tend. Error  is  never  dangerous  by  itself;  it  is  only  when 
it  has  an  admixture  of  truth  that  it  becomes  powerful  for 
evil.  And  it  seems  a  thousand  pities  that  the  govern- 
ments, whose  own  interests  are  at  stake,  as  well  as  those 
of  the  communities  they  govern,  should  go  out  of  their 
way  to  provide  an  explosive  element  for  Bolshevism  and 
its  less  sinister  variants." 

The  League  was  treated  as  a  living  organism  before  it 
existed.  All  the  problems  which  the  Supreme  Councilors 
iound  insoluble  were  reserved  for  its  judgment.  Arduous 
functions  were  allotted  to  it  before  it  had  organs  to  dis- 
charge them.  Formidable  tasks  were  imposed  upon  it 
before  the  means  of  achieving  them  were  devised.  It  is 
an  institution  so  elusive  and  elastic  that  the  French  regard 
it  as  capable  of  being  used  as  a  handy  instrument  for 
coercing  the  Teutons,  who,  in  turn,  look  upon  it  as  a 
means  of  recovering  their  place  in  the  world;  the  Jap- 
anese hope  it  may  become  a  bridge  leading  to  racial 
equality,  and  the  governments  which  devised  it  are  bent 
on  employing  it  as  a  lever  for  their  own  politico-economic 
aims,  which  they  identify  with  the  progress  of  the  human 
race.     How  the  peoples  look  upon  it  the  future  will  show. 

On  the  Monroe  Doctrine  in  connection  with  the  League 
of  Nations  the  less  said  the  soonest  mended.  But  one 
cannot  well  say  less  than  this:   that  any  real  society  of 

48s 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

peoples  such  as  Mr.  Wilson  first  conceived  and  advocated 
is  as  incompatible  with  "regional  understandings  like  the 
Monroe  Doctrine"  as  are  the  maintenance  of  national 
armaments  and  the  bartering  of  populations.  It  is  im- 
material whether  one  concludes  that  a  Society  of  Nations 
is  therefore  impossible  in  the  present  conjimcture  or  that 
all  those  survivals  of  the  old  state  system  are  obsolescent 
and  should  be  abolished.  The  two  are  unquestionably 
irreconcilable. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  infer  from  the  unanimity  with 
which  Mr.  Wilson's  Covenant  was  finally  accepted  that 
it  expressed  the  delegates'  genuine  conceptions  or  senti- 
ments. Mr.  Bullitt,  one  of  the  expert  advisers  to  the 
American  Peace  Delegation,  testified  before  the  Senate 
committee  in  Washington  that  State-Secretary  Lansing 
remarked  to  him:  "I  consider  the  League  of  Nations  at 
present  as  entirely  useless.  The  Great  Powers  have  sim- 
ply gone  ahead  and  arranged  the  world  to  suit  themselves. 
England  and  France,  in  particular,  have  gotten  out  of 
the  Treaty  everything  they  wanted.  The  League  of 
Nations  can  do  nothing  to  alter  any  unjust  clauses  of  the 
Treaty  except  by  the  unanimous  consent  of  the  League 
members.  The  Great  Powers  will  never  consent  to 
changes  in  the  interests  of  weaker  peoples."^ 

This  opinion  which  Mr.  Bullitt  ascribed  to  Mr.  Lansing 
was,  to  my  knowledge,  that  of  a  large  number  of  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  nations  at  the  Conference.  Among  them 
all  I  have  met  very  few  who  had  a  good  word  to  say  of 
the  scheme,  and  of  the  few  one  had  helped  to  formulate  it, 
another  had  assisted  him.  And  the  unfavorable  judg- 
ments of  the  remainder  were  delivered  after  the  Covenant 
was  signed. 

One  of  those  leaders,  in  conversation  with  several  other 
delegates  and  myself,  exclaimed  one  day:    "The  League 

^  Cf.  The  New  York  Herald  (Paris  edition),  September  14, 1919, 

486 


THE  COVENANT  AND  MINORITIES 

of  Nations  indeed!  It  is  an  absurdity.  Who  among 
thinking  men  believes  in  its  reaHty?"  "I  do,"  answered 
his  neighbor;  "but,  like  the  devils,  I  believe  and  tremble. 
I  hold  that  it  is  a  corrosive  poison  which  destroys  much 
that  is  good  and  will  further  much  that  is  bad."  A 
statesman  who  was  not  a  delegate  demurred.  "In  my 
opinion,"  he  said,  "it  is  a  response  to  a  demand  put  for- 
ward by  the  peoples  of  the  globe,  and  because  of  this 
origin  something  good  will  ultimately  come  of  it.  Un- 
questionably it  is  very  defective,  but  in  time  it  may  be — 
nay,  must  be — changed  for  the  better."  The  first  speaker 
replied:  "If  you  imagine  that  the  League  will  help 
continental  peoples,  you  are,  I  am  convinced,  mistaken. 
It  took  the  United  States  three  years  to  go  to  the  help  of 
Britain  and  France.  How  long  do  you  suppose  it  will 
take  her  to  mobilize  and  despatch  troops  to  succor  Poland, 
Rumania,  or  Czechoslovakia?  I  am  acquainted  with 
British  colonial  public  opinion  and  sentiment — too  often 
misunderstood  by  foreigners — and  I  can  tell  you  that  they 
are  misconstrued  by  those  who  fancy  that  they  would 
determine  action  of  that  kind.  If  England  tells  the 
colonies  that  she  needs  their  help,  they  will  come,  because 
their  people  are  flesh  of  her  flesh  and  blood  of  her  blood, 
and  also  because  they  depend  for  their  defense  upon  her 
navy,  and  if  she  were  to  go  under  they  would  go  under, 
too.  But  the  continental  nations  have  no  such  claims 
upon  the  British  colonies,  which  would  not  be  in  a  hurry 
to  make  sacrifices  in  order  to  satisfy  their  appetites  or 
their  passions." 

The  second  speaker  then  said:  "It  is  possible,  but 
nowise  certain,  that  the  future  League  may  help  to  settle 
these  disputes  which  professional  diplomatists  would  have 
arranged,  and  in  the  old  way,  but  it  will  not  affect  those 
others  which  are  the  real  causes  of  wars.  If  a  nation  be- 
lieves it  can  further  its  vital  interest  by  breaking  the  peace, 

487 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

the  League  cannot  stop  it.  How  could  it?  It  lacks  the 
means.  There  will  be  no  army  ready.  It  would  have  to 
create  one.  Even  now,  when  such  an  army,  powerful  and 
victorious,  is  in  the  field,  the  League — for  the  Supreme 
Council  is  that  and  more — cannot  get  its  orders  obeyed. 
How  then  will  its  behest  be  treated  when  it  has  no  troops 
at  its  beck  and  call?  It  is  redrawing  the  map  of  central 
and  eastern  Europe,  and  is  very  satisfied  with  its  work. 
But,  as  we  know,  the  peoples  of  those  countries  look  upon 
its  map  as  a  sheet  of  paper  covered  with  lines  and  blotches 
of  color  to  which  no  reality  corresponds." 

The  constitution  of  the  League  was  termed  by  Mr. 
Wilson  a  Covenant,  a  word  redolent  of  biblical  and  puri- 
tanical times,  which  accorded  well  with  the  motives  that 
decided  him  to  prefer  Geneva  to  Brussels  as  the  seat  of 
the  League,  and  to  adopt  other  measures  of  a  supposed 
political  character.  The  first  draft  of  this  document  was, 
as  we  saw,  completed  in  the  incredibly  short  space  of  some 
thirty  hours,  so  as  to  enable  the  President  to  take  it  with 
him  to  Washington.  As  the  Ententophil  Echo  de  Paris 
remarked,  "By  a  fixed  date  the  merchandise  has  to  be 
consigned  on  board  the  George  Washington.'"  ^ 

The  discussions  that  took  place  after  the  President's 
return  from  the  United  States  were  animated,  interesting, 
and  symptomatic.  In  April  the  commission  had  several 
sittings,  at  which  various  amendments  and  alterations 
were  proposed,  some  of  which  would  cut  deep  into  inter- 
national relations,  while  others  were  of  slight  moment 
and  gave  rise  to  amusing  sallies.  One  day  the  proposal 
was  mooted  that  each  member-state  should  be  free  to 
secede  on  giving  two  years'  notice.  M.  Larnaude,  who 
viewed  membership  as  something  sacramentally  inalien- 
able, seemed  shocked,  as  though  the  suggestion  bordered 
on  sacrilege,  and  wondered  how  any  government  should 

^  L'Echo  de  Paris,  February  17,  1919. 

488 


THE   COVENANT  AND  MINORITIES 

feel  tempted  to  take  such  a  step.  Signer  Orlando  was  of 
a  different  opinion.  "However  precious  the  privilege  of 
membership  may  be,"  he  said,  "it  would  be  a  comfort 
always  to  know  that  you  could  divest  yourself  of  it  at  will. 
I  am  shut  up  in  my  room  all  day  working.  I  do  not  go 
into  the  open  air  any  oftener  than  a  prisoner  might.  But 
I  console  myself  with  the  thought  that  I  can  go  out  when- 
ever I  take  it  into  my  head.  And  I  am  sure  a  similar 
reflection  on  membership  of  the  League  would  be  equally 
soothing.     I  am  in  favor  of  the  motion." 

The  center  of  interest  daring  the  drafting  of  the  Cove- 
nant lay  in  the  clause  proclaiming  the  equality  of  religions, 
which  Mr.  Wilson  was  bent  on  having  passed  at  all  costs, 
if  not  in  one  form,  then  in  another.  This  is  one  example 
of  the  occasional  visibility  of  the  religious  thread  which 
ran  through  a  good  deal  of  his  personal  work  at  the  Con- 
ference. For  it  is  a  fact — not  yet  realized  even  by  the 
delegates  themselves — that  distinctly  religious  motives 
inspired  much  that  was  done  by  the  Conference  on  what 
seemed  political  or  social  grounds.  The  strategy  adopted 
by  the  eminent  American  statesman  to  have  his  stipula- 
tion accepted  proceeded  in  this  case  on  the  lines  of  a 
humanitarian  resolve  to  put  an  end  to  sanguinary  wars 
rather  than  on  those  which  the  average  reformer,  bent  on 
cultural  progress,  wo  aid  have  traced.  Actuality  was  im- 
parted to  this  simple  and  yet  thorny  topic  by  a  concrete 
proposal  which  the  President  made  one  day.  What  he  is 
reported  to  have  said  is  briefly  this:  "As  the  treatment  of 
religious  confessions  has  been  in  the  past,  and  may  again 
in  the  future  be,  a  cause  of  sanguinary  wars,  it  seems  de- 
sirable that  a  clause  should  be  introduced  into  the  Cove- 
nant establishing  absolute  liberty  for  creeds  and  con- 
fessions." "On  what,  Mr.  President,"  asked  the  first 
Polish  delegate,  "do  you  found  your  assertion  that  wars 
are   still   brought   about   by   the   differential   treatment 

489 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

meted  out  to  religions?  Does  contemporary  history  bear 
out  this  statement?  And,  if  not,  what  likeHhood  is  there 
that  rehgious  inequaHty  will  precipitate  sanguinary  con- 
flicts in  the  future?"  To  this  pointed  question  Mr.  Wil- 
son is  said  to  have  made  the  characteristic  reply  that  he 
considered  it  expedient  to  assume  this  nexus  between 
religious  inequality  and  war  as  the  safest  way  of  bringing 
the  matter  forward.  If  he  were  to  proceed  on  any  other 
lines,  he  added,  there  would  be  truth  and  force  in  the 
objection  which  would  doubtless  be  raised,  that  the  Con- 
ference was  intruding  upon  the  domestic  affairs  of  sover- 
eign states.  As  that  charge  would  damage  the  cause,  it 
must  be  rebutted  in  advance.  And  for  this  purpose  he 
deemed  it  prudent  to  approach  the  subject  from  the  side 
he  had  chosen. 

This  reply  was  listened  to  in  silence  and  unfavorably 
commented  upon  later.  The  alleged  relation  between 
such  religious  inequality  as  has  survived  into  the  twentieth 
century  and  such  wars  as  are  waged  nowadays  is  so  ob- 
viously fictitious  that  one  can  hardly  understand  the  line 
of  reasoning  that  led  to  its  assumption,  or  the  effect  which 
the  fiction  could  be  supposed  to  have  on  the  minds  of 
those  legislators  who  might  be  opposed  to  the  measure 
on  the  ground  that  it  involved  undue  interference  in  the 
internal  affairs  of  sovereign  states.  The  motion  was  re- 
ferred to  a  commission,  which  in  due  time  presented  a 
report.  Mr.  Wilson  was  absent  when  the  report  came  up 
for  discussion,  his  place  being  taken  by  Colonel  House. 
The  atmosphere  was  chilly,  only  a  couple  of  the  delegates 
being  disposed  to  support  the  clause — Rumania's  repre- 
sentative, M.  Diamandi,  was  one,  and  another  was 
Baron  Makino,  whose  help  Colonel  House  would  gladly 
have  dispensed  with,  so  inacceptable  was  the  condition  it 
carried  with  it. 

Baron  Makino  said  that  he  entirely  agreed  with  Colonel 

49Q 


TIIK   COVENANT  AND  xMINORITIES 

House  and  the  American  delegates.  The  equality  of 
religious  confessions  was  not  merely  desirable,  but  neces- 
sar>^  to  the  smooth  working  of  a  Society  of  Nations  such 
as  they  were  engaged  in  establishing.  He  held,  however, 
that  it  should  be  extended  to  races,  that  extension  being 
also  a  corollary  of  the  principle  underlying  the  new  inter- 
national ordering.  He  would  therefore  move  the  inser- 
tion of  a  clause  proclaiming  the  equality  of  races  and 
religions.  At  this  Colonel  House  looked  pensive.  Nearly 
all  the  other  opinions  were  hostile  to  Colonel  House's 
motion. 

The  reasons  alleged  by  each  of  the  dissenting  lawgivers 
were  interesting.  Lord  Robert  Cecil  surprised  many  of 
his  colleagues  by  informing  them  that  in  England  the 
Catholics,  who  are  fairly  treated  as  things  are,  could  not 
possibly  be  set  on  a  footing  of  perfect  equality  with  their 
Protestant  fellow-citizens,  because  the  Constitution  for- 
bids it.  Nor  could  the  British  people  be  asked  to  alter 
their  Constitution.  He  gave  as  instances  of  the  slight 
inequality  at  present  enforced  the  circumstance  that  no 
Catholic  can  ascend  the  throne  as  monarch,  nor  sit  on  the 
woolsack  as  LxDrd  Chancellor  in  the  Upper  House. 

M.  Larnaude,  speaking  in  the  name  of  France,  stated 
that  his  country  had  passed  through  a  sequence  of  em- 
barrassments caused  by  legislation  on  the  relations  be- 
tween the  Catholics  and  the  state,  and  that  the  introduc- 
tion of  a  clause  enacting  perfect  equality  might  revive 
controversies  which  were  happily  losing  their  sharpness. 
He  considered  it,  therefore,  inadvisable  to  settle  this 
delicate  matter  by  inserting  the  proposed  declaration  in 
the  Covenant.  Belgium's  first  delegate,  M.  Hymans, 
pointed  out  that  the  objection  taken  by  his  government 
was  of  a  different  but  equally  cogent  character.  There 
was  reason  to  apprehend  that  the  Flemings  might  avail 
themselves  of  the  equality  clause  to  raise  awkward  issues 

491 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

and  to  sow  seeds  of  dissension.  On  those  grounds  he 
would  Hke  to  see  the  proposal  waived.  Signor  Orlando 
half  seriously,  half  jokingly,  reminded  his  colleagues  that 
none  of  their  countries  had,  like  his,  a  pope  in  their 
capital.  The  Italian  government  must,  therefore,  pro- 
ceed in  religious  matters  with  the  greatest  circumspection, 
and  could  not  lightly  assent  to  any  measure  capable  of 
being  manipulated  to  the  detriment  of  the  public  interest. 
Hence  he  was  unable  to  give  the  motion  his  support.  It 
was  finally  suggested  that  both  proposals  be  withdrawn. 
To  this  Colonel  House  demurred,  on  the  ground  that 
President  Wilson,  who  was  unavoidably  absent,  attached 
very  great  weight  to  the  declaration,  to  which  he  hoped 
the  delegates  would  give  their  most  favorable  considera- 
tion. One  of  the  members  then  rose  and  said,  "In  that 
case  we  had  better  postpone  the  voting  until  Mr.  Wilson 
can  attend."  This  suggestion  was  adopted.  When  the 
matter  came  up  for  discussion  at  a  subsequent  sitting,  the 
Japanese  substituted  "nations"  for  "races." 

In  the  meantime  the  usual  arts  of  parliamentary  emer- 
gency were  practised  outside  the  Conference  to  induce 
the  Japanese  to  withdraw  their  proposal  altogether.  They 
were  told  that  to  accept  or  refuse  it  would  be  to  damage 
the  cause  of  the  future  League  without  furthering  their 
own.  But  the  Marquis  Saionji  and  Baron  Makino  re- 
fused to  yield  an  inch  of  their  ground.  A  conversation 
then  took  place  between  the  Premier  of  Australia,  on  the 
one  side,  and  Baron  Makino  and  Viscount  Chinda,  on  the 
other,  with  a  view  to  their  reaching  a  compromise.  For 
Mr.  Hughes  was  understood  to  be  the  leader  of  those 
who  opposed  any  declaration  of  racial  equality.  The 
Japanese  statesmen  showed  him  their  amendment,  and 
asked  him  whether  he  could  suggest  a  modification  that 
would  satisfy  himself  and  them.  The  answer  was  in  the 
negative.     To  the  arguments  of  the  Japanese  delegates 

492 


THE  COVENANT  AND  MINORITIES 

the  Australian  Premier  is  understood  to  have  replied: 
'T  am  willing  to  admit  the  equality  of  the  Japanese  as  a 
nation,  and  also  of  individuals  man  to  man.  But  I  do 
not  admit  the  consequence  that  we  should  throw  open  our 
country  to  them.  It  is  not  that  we  hold  them  to  be  in- 
ferior to  ourselves,  but  simply  that  we  do  not  want  them. 
Economically  they  are  a  perturbing  factor,  because  they 
accept  wages  much  below  the  minimum  for  which  our 
people  are  willing  to  work.  Neither  do  they  blend  well 
with  our  people.  Hence  we  do  not  want  them  to  marry 
our  women.  Those  are  my  reasons.  We  mean  no  of- 
fense. Our  restrictive  legislation  is  not  aimed  specially 
at  the  Japanese.  British  subjects  in  India  are  affected 
by  it  in  exactly  the  same  way.  It  is  impossible  that  we 
should  formulate  any  modifications  of  your  amendment, 
because  there  is  no  modification  conceivable  that  would 
satisfy  us  both." 

The  Japanese  delegates  were  understood  to  say  that 
they  would  maintain  their  motion,  and  that  unless  it 
passed  they  would  not  sign  the  document.  Mr.  Hughes 
retorted  that  if  it  should  pass  he  would  refuse  to  sign. 
Finally  the  Australian  Premier  asked  Baron  Makino 
whether  he  would  be  satisfied  with  the  following  qualify- 
ing proviso :  ' '  This  affirmation  of  the  principle  of  equal- 
ity is  not  to  be  applied  to  immigration  or  nationalization." 
Baron  Makino  and  Viscount  Chmda  both  answered  in 
the  negative  and  withdrew. 

The  final  act^  is  described  by  eye-witnesses  as  fol- 
lows. Congruously  with  the  order  of  the  day.  Presi- 
dent Wilson  having  moved  that  the  city  of  Geneva 
be  selected  as  the  capital  of  the  future  League,  ob- 
tained a  majority,  whereupon  he  announced  that  the 
motion  had  passed. 

Then  came  the  burning  question   of  the  equality  of 

1  On  April  ii,  1919. 

493 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

nations.^  The  Polish  delegate  arose  and  opposed  it  on 
the  formal  ground  that  nothing  ought  to  be  inserted  in 
the  preamble  which  was  not  dealt  with  also  in  the  body 
of  the  Covenant,  as  otherwise  it  would  be  no  more  than 
an  isolated  theory  devoid  of  organic  connection  with  the 
whole.  The  Japanese  delegates  delivered  speeches  of 
cogent  argument  and  impressive  debating  power.  Baron 
Makino  made  out  a  very  strong  case  for  the  equality  of 
nations.  Viscount  Chinda  followed  in  a  trenchant  dis- 
course, which  was  highly  appreciated  by  his  hearers, 
nearly  all  of  whom  recognized  the  justice  of  the  Japanese 
claim.  The  Japanese  delegates  refused  to  be  dazzled 
by  the  circumstances  that  Japan  was  to  be  represented 
on  the  Executive  Council  as  one  of  the  five  Great  Powers, 
and  that  the  rejection  of  the  proposed  amendment  could 
not  therefore  be  construed  as  a  diminution  of  her  prestige. 
This  consideration,  they  retorted,  was  wholly  irrelevant 
to  the  question  whether  or  no  the  nations  were  to  be 
recognized  as  equal.  They  ended  by  refusing  to  with- 
draw their  modified  amendment  and  calling  for  a  vote. 
The  result  was  a  majority  for  the  amendment.  Mr. 
Wilson  thereupon  announced  that  a  majority  was  insuffi- 
cient to  justify  its  adoption,  and  that  nothing  less  than 
absolute  unanimity  could  be  regarded  as  adequate.  At 
this  a  delegate  objected:  "Mr.  Wilson,  you  have  just 
accepted  a  majority  for  your  own  motion  respecting 
Geneva;  on  what  grounds,  may  I  ask,  do  you  refuse  to 
abide  by  a  majority  vote  on  the  amendment  of  the 
Japanese  delegation?"  "The  two  cases  are  different," 
was  the  reply.  ' '  On  the  subject  of  the  seat  of  the  League 
unanimity  is  unattainable."  This  closed  the  official 
discussion. 


1  The  wording  of  the  final  Japanese  amendment  was;  "By  the  endorse- 
ment of  the  principle  of  equality  of  nations  and  just  treatment  of  their 
nationals." 

494 


THE   COVENANT  AND  MINORITIES 

Some  time  later,  it  is  asserted,  the  Rumanians,  who 
had  supported  Mr.  Wilson's  motion  on  religious  equality, 
were  approached  on  the  subject,  and  informed  that  it 
would  be  agreeable  to  the  American  delegates  to  have 
the  original  proposal  brought  up  once  more.  Such  a 
motion,  it  was  added,  would  come  with  especial  propriety 
from  the  Rumanians,  who,  in  the  person  of  M.  Diamandi, 
had  advocated  it  from  the  outset.  But  the  Rumanian 
delegates  hesitated,  pleading  the  invincible  opposition 
of  the  Japanese.  They  were  assured,  however,  that 
the  Japanese  would  no  longer  discountenance  it.  There- 
upon they  broached  the  matter  to  Lord  Robert  Cecil, 
but  he,  with  his  wonted  caution,  replied  that  it  was  a 
delicate  subject  to  handle,  especially  after  the  experience 
they  had  already  had.  As  for  himself,  he  would  rather 
leave  the  initiative  to  others.  Could  the  Rumanian 
delegates  not  open  their  minds  to  Colonel  House,  who 
took  the  amendment  so  much  to  heart?  They  acted  on 
this  suggestion  and  called  on  Colonel  House.  He,  too, 
however,  declared  that  it  was  a  momentous  as  well  as  a 
thorny  topic,  and  for  that  reason  had  best  be  referred 
to  the  head  of  the  American  delegation.  President  Wil- 
son, having  originated  the  amendment,  was  the  person 
most  qualified  to  take  direct  action.  It  is  further  affirmed 
that  they  sounded  the  President  as  to  the  advisability  of 
mooting  the  question  anew,  but  that  he  declined  to  face 
another  vote,  and  the  matter  was  dropped  for  good — 
in  that  form. 

It  was  publicly  asserted  later  on  that  the  Japanese 
decided  to  abide  by  the  rejection  of  their  amendment 
and  to  sign  the  Covenant  as  the  result  of  a  bargain  on 
the  Shantung  dispute.  This  report,  however,  was  pul- 
verized by  the  Japanese  delegation,  which  pointed  oul; 
that  the  introduction  of  the  racial  clause  was  decided 
upon  before  the  delegates  left  Japan,  and  when  no  diffi 

495 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

culties  were  anticipated  respecting  Japan's  claim  to  have 
that  province  ceded  to  her  by  Germany,  and  that  the 
discussion  on  the  amendment  terminated  on  April  nth, 
consequently  before  the  Kiaochow  issue  came  up  for  dis- 
cussion. As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Japanese  publicly 
announced  their  intention  to  adhere  to  the  League  of 
Nations  two  days^  before  a  decision  was  reached  respecting 
their  claims  to  Kiaochow. 

This  adverse  note  on  Mr.  Wilson's  pet  scheme  to  have 
religious  equality  proclaimed  as  a  means  of  hindering 
sanguinary  wars  brought  to  its  climax  the  reaction  of  the 
Conference  against  what  it  regarded  as  a  systematic 
endeavor  to  establish  the  overlordship  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  peoples  in  the  world.  The  plea  that  wars  may  be 
provoked  by  such  religious  inequality  as  still  survives 
was  so  unreal  that  it  awakened  a  twofold  suspicion  in  the 
minds  of  many  of  Mr.  Wilson's  colleagues.  Most  of  them 
believed  that  a  pretext  was  being  sought  to  enable  the 
leading  Powers  to  intervene  in  the  domestic  concerns 
of  all  the  other  states,  so  as  to  keep  them  firmly  in  hand, 
and  use  them  as  means  to  their  own  ends.  And  these 
ends  were  looked  upon  as  anything  but  disinterested. 
Unhappily  this  conviction  was  subsequently  strengthened 
by  certain  of  the  measures  decreed  by  the  Supreme  Coun- 
cil between  April  and  the  close  of  the  Conference.  The 
misgivings  of  other  delegates  turned  upon  a  matter  which 
at  first  sight  may  appear  so  far  removed  from  any  of  the 
pressing  issues  of  the  twentieth  century  as  to  seem  wholly 
imaginary.  They  feared  that  a  reHgious — some  would 
call  it  racial — ^bias  lay  at  the  root  of  Mr.  Wilson's  policy. 
It  may  seem  amazing  to  some  readers,  but  it  is  none  the 
less  a  fact  that  a  considerable  number  of  delegates  believed 
that  the  real  influences  behind  the  Anglo-Saxon  peoples 
were  Semitic. 

'  On  April  28,  1919. 

496 


THE  COVENANT  AND  MINORITIES 

They  confronted  the  President's  proposal  on  the  sub- 
ject of  rcHgious  mequahty,  and,  in  particular,  the  odd 
motive  alleged  for  it,  with  the  measures  for  the  protec- 
tion of  minorities  which  he  subsequently  imposed  on  the 
lesser  states,  and  which  had  for  their  keynote  to  satisfy 
the  Jewish  elements  in  eastern  Europe.  And  they  con- 
cluded that  the  sequence  of  expedients  framed  and 
enforced  in  this  direction  were  inspired  by  the  Jews,  as- 
sembled in  Paris  for  the  purpose  of  realizing  their  care- 
fully thought-out  program,  which  they  succeeded  in  hav- 
ing substantially  executed.  However  right  or  wrong  these 
delegates  may  have  been,  it  would  be  a  dangerous  mistake 
to  ignore  their  views,  seeing  that  they  have  since  become 
one  of  the  permanent  elements  of  the  situation.  The 
formula  into  which  this  policy  was  thrown  by  the  members 
of  the  Conference,  whose  countries  it  affected,  and  who 
regarded  it  as  fatal  to  the  peace  of  eastern  Europe,  was 
this:  "Henceforth  the  world  will  be  governed  by  the 
Anglo-Saxon  peoples,  who,  in  turn,  are  swayed  by  their 
Jewish  elements." 

It  is  difficult  to  convey  an  adequate  notion  of  the 
warmth  of  feeling — one  might  almost  call  it  the  heat  of 
passion — which  this  supposed  discovery  generated.  The 
applications  of  the  theory  to  many  of  the  puzzles  of  the 
past  were  countless  and  ingenious.  The  illustrations  of 
the  manner  in  which  the  policy  was  pursued,  and  the 
cajolery  and  threats  which  were  said  to  have  been  em- 
ployed in  order  to  insure  its  success,  covered  the  whole 
history  of  the  Conference,  and  presented  it  through  a  new 
and  possibly  distorted  medium.  The  morbid  suspicions 
current  may  have  been  the  natural  vein  of  men  who  had 
passed  a  great  part  of  their  lives  in  petty  racial  struggles; 
but  according  to  common  account,  it  was  abundantly 
nurtured  at  the  Conference  by  the  lack  of  reserve  and 
moderation  displayed  by  some  of  the  promoters  of  the 

497 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

minority  clauses  who  were  deficient  in  the  sense  of  meas- 
ure. What  the  Eastern  delegates  said  was  briefly  this: 
' '  The  tide  in  our  countries  was  flowing  rapidly  in  favor  of 
the  Jews.  All  the  east  European  governments  which  had 
theretofore  wronged  them  w^ere  uttering  their  mea  culpa, 
and  had  solemnly  promised  to  turn  over  a  new  leaf. 
Nay,  they  had  already  turned  it.  We,  for  example, 
altered  our  legislation  in  order  to  meet  by  anticipation 
the  legitimate  wishes  of  the  Conference  and  the  pressing 
demands  of  the  Jews.  We  did  quite  enough  to  obviate 
decrees  which  might  impair  our  sovereignty  or  lessen  our 
prestige.  Poland  and  Rumania  issued  laws  establishing 
absolute  equality  between  the  Jews  and  their  own  na- 
tionals. All  discrimination  had  ceased.  Immigrant  He- 
brews from  Russia  received  the  full  rights  of  citizenship 
and  became  entitled  to  fill  any  office  in  the  state.  In  a 
w^ord,  all  the  old  disabilities  were  abolished  and  the 
fervent  prayer  of  east  European  governments  was  that 
the  Jewish  members  of  their  respective  communities 
should  be  gradually  assimilated  to  the  natives  and  become 
patriotic  citizens  like  them.  It  was  a  new  ideal.  It 
accorded  to  the  Jews  everything  they  had  asked  for.  It 
would  enable  them  to  show  themselves  as  the  French, 
Italian,  and  Belgian  Jews  had  shown  themselves,  efficient 
citizens  of  their  adopted  countries. 

"But  in  the  flush  of  their  triumph,  the  Jews,  or  rather 
their  spokesmen  at  the  Conference,  were  not  satisfied 
with  equality.  What  they  demanded  was  inequality  to 
the  detriment  of  the  races  whose  hospitality  they  were 
enjoying  and  to  their  own  supposed  advantage.  They 
were  to  have  the  same  rights  as  the  Rumanians,  the 
Poles,  and  the  other  peoples  among  whom  they  lived, 
but  they  were  also  to  have  a  good  deal  more.  Their 
religious  autonomy  was  placed  under  the  protection  of  an 
alien  body,  the  League,  which  is  but  another  name  for 

498 


THE  COVENANT  AND  MINORITIES 

the  Powers  which  have  reserved  to  themselves  the 
governance  of  the  world.  The  method  is  to  oblige  each 
of  the  lesser  states  to  bestow  on  each  minority  the  same 
rights  as  the  majority  enjoys,  and  also  certain  privileges 
over  and  above.  The  instnmicnt  imposing  this  obliga- 
tion is  a  formal  treaty  with  the  Great  Powers  which  the 
Poles,  Rumanians,  and  other  small  states  were  sum- 
moned to  sign.  It  contains  twenty-one  articles.  The 
first  part  of  the  document  deals  with  minorities  generally, 
the  latter  with  the  Jewish  elements.  The  second  clause 
of  the  Polish  treaty  enacts  that  every  individual  who 
habitually  resided  in  Poland  on  August  i,  19 14,  becomes  a 
citizen  forthwith.  This  is  simple.  Is  it  also  satisfactory? 
IMany  Frenchmen  and  Poles  doubt  it,  as  we  do  ourselves. 
On  August  ist  numerous  German  and  Austrian  agents  and 
spies,  many  of  them  Hebrews,  resided  habitually  in 
Poland.  Moreover,  the  foreign  Jewish  elements  there, 
which  have  immigrated  from  Russia,  having  lost — like 
ev^erybody  else  before  the  war — the  expectation  of  seeing 
Polish  independence  ever  restored,  had  definitely  thrown 
in  their  lot  with  the  enemies  of  Poland.  Now  to  put 
into  the  hands  of  such  enemies  constitutional  weapons  is 
already  a  sacrifice  and  a  risk.  The  Jews  in  Vilna  re- 
cently voted  solidly  against  the  incorporation  of  that 
city  in  Poland.^  Are  they  to  be  treated  as  loyal  Polish 
citizens?  We  have  conceded  the  point  unreservedly. 
But  to  give  them  autonomy  over  and  above,  to  create  a 
state  within  the  state,  and  enable  its  subjects  to  call  in 
foreign  Powers  at  every  hand's  turn,  against  the  lawfully 
constituted  authorities — that  is  an  expedient  which  does 
not  commend  itself  to  the  newly  emancipated  peoples." 
The  Rumanian   Premier  Bratiano,  whose  conspicuous 

1  The  Jewish  coalition  in  Vilna  inscribed  on  its  program  the  union  of 
Vilna  wth  Russia.  .  .  .  There  was  an  overwhelming  majority  in  favor  of  its 
retention  by  Poland. — Le  Temps,  September  14,  1919.  The  election  took 
place  on  September  7th. 

33  499 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

sei-vices  to  the  Allied  cause  entitled  him  to  a  respectful 
hearing,  delivered  a  powerful  speech  *  before  the  dele- 
gates assembled  in  plenary  session  on  this  question  of 
protecting  ethnic  and  religious  minorities.  He  covered 
ground  unsurveyed  by  the  framers  of  the  special  treaties, 
and  his  sincere  tone  lent  weight  to  his  arguments.  Start- 
ing from  the  postulate  that  the  strength  of  latter-day 
states  depends  upon  the  widest  participation  of  all  the 
elements  of  the  population  in  the  government  of  the 
country,  he  admitted  the  peremptory  necessity  of  abolish- 
ing invidious  distinctions  between  the  various  elements  of 
the  population  there,  ethnic  or  religious.  So  far,  he  was 
at  one  with  the  spokesmen  of  the  Great  Powers.  Ru- 
mania, however,  had  already  accomplished  this  by  the 
decree  enabling  her  Jews  to  acquire  full  citizenship  by 
expressing  the  mere  desire  according  to  a  simple  formula. 
This  act  confers  the  full  rights  of  Rumanian  citizens  upon 
eight  hundred  thousand  Jews.  The  Jewish  press  of 
Bucharest  had  already  given  utterance  to  its  entire  satis- 
faction. If,  however,  the  Jews  are  now  to  be  placed  in  a 
special  category,  differentiated  and  kept  apart  from  their 
fellow-citizens  by  having  autonomous  institutions,  by  the 
maintenance  of  the  German- Yiddish  dialect,  which  keeps 
alive  the  Teuton  anti-Rumanian  spirit,  and  by  being 
authorized  to  regard  the  Rumanian  state  as  an  inferior 
tribunal,  from  which  an  appeal  always  lies  to  a  foreign 
body — the  government  of  the  Great  Powers — this  would 
be  the  most  invidious  of  all  distinctions,  and  calculated 
to  render  the  assimilation  of  the  German- Yiddish-speaking 
Jews  to  their  Rumanian  fellow-citizens  a  sheer  impos- 
sibility. The  majority  and  the  minority  would  then  be 
systematically  and  definitely  estranged  from  each  other; 
and,  seeing  this,  the  elemental  instincts  of  the  masses 
might  suddenly  assume  untoward  forms,  which  the  treaty, 

'On  Saturday,  May  31,  1919. 

500 


THE   COVENANT  AND   MINUIUTIES 

if  ratified,  would  be  unavailing  to  prevent.  But,  however 
baneful  for  the  jDopulation,  foreign  protection  is  incompa- 
rably worse  for  the  state,  because  it  tends  to  destroy  the 
cement  that  holds  the  government  and  people  together, 
and  ultimately  to  bring  about  disintegration.  A  classic 
example  of  this  process  of  disru]:)tion  is  Russia's  well-meant 
protection  of  the  persecuted  Christians  in  Turkey.  In  this 
case  the  motive  was  admirable,  the  necessity  imperative, 
but  the  result  was  the  dismemberment  of  Turkey  and  other 
changes,  some  of  which  one  would  like  to  forget. 

The  delegation  of  Czechoslovakia,  Jugoslavia,  and  Po- 
land upheld  M.  Bratiano's  contentions  in  brief,  pithy 
speeches.  President  Wilson's  lengthy  rejoinder,  deliv- 
ered with  more  than  ordinary  sweetness,  deprecated  M. 
Bratiano's  comparison  of  the  Allies'  proposed  interven- 
tion with  Russia's  protection  of  the  Christians  of  Turkey, 
and  represented  the  measure  as  emanating  from  the 
purest  kindness.  He  said  that  the  Great  Powers  were 
now  bestowing  national  existence  or  extensive  territories 
upon  the  interested  states,  actually  guaranteeing  their 
frontiers,  and  therefore  making  themselves  responsible 
for  pennanent  tranquillity  there.  But  the  treatment  of 
the  minorities,  he  added,  unless  fair  and  considerate,  might 
produce  the  gravest  troubles  and  even  precipitate  wars. 
Therefore  it  behooved  the  Powers  in  the  interests  of  all 
Europe,  as  of  each  of  its  individual  members,  to  secure 
harmonious  relations,  and,  at  any  rate,  to  remove  all 
manifest  obstacles  to  their  establishment.  "We  guaran- 
tee your  frontiers  and  your  territories.  That  means  that 
we  will  send  over  anus,  ships,  and  men,  in  case  of  neces- 
sity. Therefore  we  possess  the  right  and  recognize  the 
duty  to  hinder  the  survival  of  a  set  of  deplorable  condi- 
tions which  would  render  this  intervention  unavoidable." 

To  this  line  of  reasoning  M.  Bratiano  made  answer  that 
all  the  helpful  maxims  of  good  government  are  of  univer- 

501 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

sal  application,  and,  therefore,  if  this  protection  of  minori- 
ties were,  indeed,  indispensable  or  desirable,  it  should  not 
be  restricted  to  the  countries  of  eastern  Europe,  but  should 
be  extended  to  all  without  exception.  For  it  is  inadmis- 
sible that  two  categories  of  states  should  be  artificially 
created,  one  endowed  with  full  sovereignty  and  the  other 
with  half-sovereignty.  Such  an  arrangement  would  de- 
stroy the  equality  which  should  lie  at  the  base  of  a  genuine 
League  of  Nations. 

But  the  Powers  had  made  up  their  minds,  and  the  spe- 
cial treaties  were  imposed  on  the  unwilling  governments. 
Thereupon  the  Rumanian  Premier  withdrew  from  the 
Conference,  and  neither  his  Cabinet  nor  that  of  the  Jugo- 
slavs signed  the  treaty  with  Austria  at  St. -Germain. 

What  happened  after  that  is  a  matter  of  history. 

Few  politicians  are  conscious  of  the  magnitude  of  the 
issue  concealed  by  the  involved  diplomatic  phraseology 
of  the  obnoxious  treaties,  or  of  the  dangers  to  which  their 
enactment  will  expose  the  minorities  which  they  were 
framed  to  protect,  the  countries  whose  hospitality  those 
minorities  enjoy,  and  possibly  other  lands,  which  for  the 
time  being  are  seemingly  immune  from  all  such  perilous 
race  problems.  The  calculable,  to  say  nothing  of  the  un- 
ascertained, elements  of  the  question  might  well  cause 
responsible  statesmen  to  be  satisfied  with  the  feasible. 
The  Jewish  elements  in  Europe,  for  centuries  abominably 
oppressed,  were  justified  in  utilizing  to  the  fullest  the  op- 
portunity presented  by  the  resettlement  of  the  world  in 
order  to  secure  equality  of  treatment.  And  it  must  be 
admitted  that  their  organization  is  marvelous.  For  years 
I  championed  their  cause  in  Russia,  and  paid  the  penalty 
under  the  governments  of  Alexander  II  and  III.^     The 


^  I  published  several  series  of  articles  in  The  Daily  Telegraph,  The  Fort- 
vi^htly  Review,  and  other  English  as  well  as  American  periodicals,  and  a 
long  chapter  in  my  book  entitled  Russian  Chanuicristics. 

503 


Tin:  COVENANT  AND  MINORITIES 

sympathy  of  every  unbiased  man,  to  whatever  race  or 
religion  he  may  belong,  will  naturally  go  out  to  a  raee  or 
a  nation  which  is  trodden  underfoot,  as  were  the  ill- 
starred  Jews  of  Russia  ever  since  the  partition  of  Poland. 
But  equality  one  would  have  thought  sufficient  to  meet 
the  grievance.  Full  equality  without  reservation.  That 
was  the  view  taken  by  numerous  Jews  in  Poland  and 
Rumania,  several  of  whom  called  on  me  in  Paris  and 
urged  me  to  give  public  utterance  to  their  hopes  that  the 
Conference  would  rest  satisfied  with  equality  and  to  their 
fear  of  the  consequences  of  an  attempt  to  establish  a 
privileged  status.  Why  this  position  should  exist  only 
in  eastern  Europe  and  not  elsewhere,  why  it  should  not 
be  extended  to  other  races  with  larger  minorities  in  other 
countries,  are  questions  to  which  a  satisfactory  response 
could  be  given  only  by  farther-reaching  and  fateful 
changes  in  the  legislation  of  the  world. 

One  of  the  statesmen  of  eastern  Europe  made  a  forcible 
appeal  to  have  the  minority  clauses  withdrawn.  He  took 
the  ground  that  the  principal  aim  pursued  in  conferring 
full  rights  on  the  Jews  who  dwell  among  us  is  to  remove 
the  obstacles  that  prevent  them  from  becoming  true  and 
loyal  citizens  of  the  state,  as  their  kindred  are  in  France, 
Italy,  Britain,  and  elsewhere.  "If  it  is  reasonable,"  he 
said,  "that  they  should  demand  all  the  rights  possessed 
by  their  Rumanian  and  Polish  fellow-subjects,  it  is  equally 
fair  that  they  should  take  over  and  fulfil  the  correlate 
duties,  as  does  the  remainder  of  the  population.  For  the 
gradual  assimilation  of  all  the  ethnic  elements  of  the  com- 
munity is  our  ideal,  as  it  is  the  ideal  of  the  French,  Eng- 
lish, Italian,  and  other  states. 

"Isolation  and  particularism  are  the  negative  of  that 
ideal,  and  operate  like  a  piece  of  iron  or  wood  in  the  human 
body  which  produces  ulceration  and  gangrene.  All  our 
institutions  should  therefore  be  calculated  to  encourage 

503 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

assimilation.  If  we  adopt  the  opposite  policy,  we  inevi- 
tably alienate  the  privileged  from  the  unprivileged  sec- 
tions of  the  community,  generate  enmity  between  them, 
cause  endless  worries  to  the  administration  and  paralyze 
in  advance  our  best-intentioned  endeavors  to  fuse  the 
various  ethnic  ingredients  of  the  nation  into  a  homogene- 
ous whole. 

"This  argument  applies  as  fully  to  the  other  national 
fragments  in  our  midst  as  to  the  Jews.  It  is  manifest, 
therefore,  that  the  one  certain  result  of  the  minority 
clause  will  be  to  impose  domestic  enemies  on  each  of  the 
states  that  submits  to  it,  and  that  it  can  commend  itself 
only  to  those  who  approve  the  maxim.  Divide  et  impera. 

"It  also  entails  the  noteworthy  diminution  of  the 
sovereignty  of  the  state.  We  are  to  be  liable  to  be  haled 
before  a  foreign  tribunal  whenever  one  of  our  minorities 
formulates  a  complaint  against  us.^  How  easily,  nay, 
how  wickedly  such  complaints  were  filed  of  late  may  be 
inferred  from  the  heartrending  accounts  of  pogroms 
in  Poland,  which  have  since  been  shown  by  the  Allies' 
own  confidential  envoys  to  be  utterly  fictitious.  Again, 
with  whom  are  we  to  make  the  obnoxious  stipulations? 
With  the  League  of  Nations?  No.  We  are  to  bind  our- 
selves toward  the  Great  Powers,  who  themselves  have 
their  minorities  which  complain  in  vain  of  being  con- 
tinually coerced.  Ireland,  Egypt,  and  the  negroes  are 
three  striking  examples.  None  of  their  delegates  were 
admitted  to  the  Conference.  If  the  principle  which 
those  Great  Powers  seek  to  enforce  be  worth  anything,  it 
should  be  applied  indiscriminately  to  all  minorities,  not 


1  "Poland  agrees  that  any  member  of  the  Council  of  the  League  of  Nations 
shall  have  the  right  to  bring  to  the  attention  of  the  Council  any  infraction, 
or  any  danger  of  infraction,  of  any  of  these  obligations,  and  that  the  Council 
may  thereupon  take  such  action  and  give  such  direction  as  it  may  deem 
proper  and  effective  in  the  circumstances." — Article  XII  of  the  Special 
Treaty  with  Poland. 


11  li:   COVENANT  AND  MINORITIES 

restricted  to  those  of  the  smaller  states,  who  already 
have  difficulties  enough  to  contend  against." 

The  trend  of  continental  opinion  was  decidedly  opposed 
to  this  policy  of  continuous  control  and  periodic  inter- 
vention. It  would  be  unfruitful  to  quote  the  sharp 
criticisms  of  the  status  of  the  negroes  in  the  United  States.^ 
But  it  will  not  be  amiss  to  cite  the  views  of  two  moderate 
French  publicists  who  have  ever  been  am(3ng  the  most 
fervent  advocates  of  the  Allied  cause.  Their  comments 
deal  with  one  of  the  articles^  of  the  special  Minority  Treaty 
which  Poland  has  had  to  sign.  It  runs  thus:  "Jews  shall 
not  be  compelled  to  perform  any  act  which  constitutes  a 
violation  of  their  Sabbath,  nor  shall  they  be  placed  under 
any  disability  by  reason  of  their  refusal  to  attend  courts 
of  law  or  to  perform  any  legal  business  on  their  Sabbath. 
This  provision,  however,  shall  not  exempt  Jews  from  such 
obligations  as  shall  be  imposed  upon  all  other  Polish 
citizens  for  the  necessary  purposes  of  military  service, 
national  defense,  or  the  preservation  of  public  order. 

''Poland  declares  her  intention  to  refrain  from  ordering 
or  permitting  elections,  whether  general  or  local,  to  be  held 
on  a  Saturday,  nor  will  registration  for  electoral  or  other 
purposes  be  compelled  to  be  performed  on  a  Saturday." 

M.  Gauvain  writes:  "One  may  put  the  question,  why 
respect  for  the  Sabbath  is  so  peremptorily  imposed  when 
Sunday  is  ignored  among  several  of  the  Allied  Powers, 
In  France  Christians  are  not  dispensed  from  appearing 
on  Sundays  before  the  assize  courts.  Besides,  Poland 
is  further  obliged  not  to  order  or  authorize  elections  on  a 
Saturday.  What  precautions  these  are  in  favor  of  the 
Jewish  religion  as  compared  with  the  legislation  of  many 
Allied  states  which  have  no  such  ordinances  in  favor 
of  Catholicism!     Is  the  same  procedure  to  be  adopted 

^  Cf.  La  Gazette  de  Lausanne,  April  24,  1919. 

-  Article  XI  of  the  Special  Treaty,  L'Etoile  Beige,  August  17,  1919. 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

toward  the  Moslems?  Shall  we  behold  the  famous  Mus- 
sulmans of  India,  so  opportunely  drawn  from  the  shade 
by  Mr.  Montagu,  demanding  the  insertion  of  clauses  to 
protect  Islam?  Will  the  Zionists  impose  their  dogmas 
in  Palestine?  Is  the  life  of  a  nation  to  be  suspended  two, 
three,  or  four  days  a  week  in  order  that  religious  laws 
may  be  observed?  Catholicism  has  adapted  itself  in 
practice  to  laic  legislation  and  to  the  exigencies  of  modern 
life.  It  may  well  seem  that  Judaism  in  Poland  could  do 
likewise.  In  Rumania,  the  Jews  met  with  no  obstacle 
to  the  exercise  of  their  religion.  Indeed,  they  had  con- 
trived in  the  localities  to  the  north  of  Moldavia,  where 
they  formed  a  majority,  to  impose  their  own  customs 
on  the  rest  of  the  population.  Jewish  guardians  of  toll- 
bridges  are  known  to  have  barred  the  passage  of  these 
bridges  on  Saturdays,  because,  on  the  one  hand,  their 
religion  forbade  them  to  accept  money  on  that  day,  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  they  could  allow  no  one  to  pass  without 
paying.  The  Big  Four  might  have  given  their  attention 
to  matters  more  useful  or  more  pressing  than  enforcing 
respect  for  the  vSabbath. 

"It  is  comprehensible  that  M.  Bratiano  should  have 
refused  to  accept  in  advance  the  conditions  which  the 
Four  or  the  Five  may  dictate  in  favor  of  ethnic  and 
religious  minorities,  Rumania  before  the  war  was  a 
free  country  governed  congruously  with  the  most  modern 
principles.  The  restrictions  which  she  had  enacted 
respecting  foreigners  in  general,  and  which  were  on  the 
point  of  being  repealed,  did  not  exceed  those  which  the 
United  States  and  the  Dominion  of  Australia  still  apply 
with  remarkable  tenacity.  Why  should  the  Cabinets  of 
London  and  Washington  take  so  much  to  heart  the  lot 
of  ethnic  and  religious  minorities  in  certain  European 
countries  while  they  themselves  refuse  to  admit  in  the 
Covenant  of  the  Society  of  Nations  the  principle  of  the 

506 


THE  COVENANT  AND  MINORITIES 

equality  of  races?  Their  conduct  is  awakening  among 
the  states  'whose  interests  are  limited'  the  belief  that 
they  are  the  victims  of  an  arbitrary  policy.  And  that  is 
not  without  danger."  ^ 

Another  eminent  Frenchman,  M.  Denis  Cochin,  who 
until  quite  recently  was  a  Cabinet  Minister,  wrote:  "The 
Conference,  by  imposing  laws  in  favor  of  minorities,  has 
uselessly  and  unjustly  offended  our  allies.  These  laws 
oblige  them  to  respect  the  usages  of  the  Jews,  to  main- 
tain schools  for  them.  ...  I  have  spent  a  large  part  of  my 
career  in  demanding  for  French  Catholics  exactly  that 
which  the  Conference  imposes  elsewhere.  The  Catholics 
pay  taxes  in  money  and  taxes  in  blood.  And  yet  there  is 
no  budget  for  those  schools  in  which  their  religion  is 
taught;  no  liberty  for  those  schoolmasters  who  wear  the 
ecclesiastical  habit.  I  have  seen  a  doctor  in  letters,  fel- 
low of  the  university,  driven  from  his  class  because  he 
was  a  Alarist  brother  and  did  not  choose  to  repudiate  the 
vocation  of  his  youth.  He  died  of  grief.  I  have  seen 
young  priests,  after  the  long,  laborious  preparation  neces- 
sary before  they  could  take  part  in  the  competition  for  a 
university  fellowship,  thrust  aside  at  the  last  moment 
and  debarred  from  the  competition  because  they  wore  the 
garb  of  priests.  Yet  a  year  later  they  were  soldiers.  I 
have  seen  Father  Schell  presented  unanimously  by  the 
Institute  and  the  Professional  Corps  as  worthy  to  receive 
a  chair  at  the  College  de  France,  and  refused  by  the 
Minister.  Yet  I  hereby  affirm  that  if  foreigners,  even 
though  they  were  allies,  even  friends,  were  to  meddle  with 
imposing  on  us  the  abrogation  of  these  iniquitous  laws, 
my  protest  would  be  uplifted  against  them,  together  with 
that  of  M.  Combes.^     I  would  exclaim,  like  Sganarelle's 


1  Le  Journal  des  Debats,  July  7,  191 9. 

-  M.  Emile  Combes  was  the  author  of  the  laws  which  banished  religious 
congregations  from  France. 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

wife,  'And  what  if  I  wish  to  be  beaten?'  I  hold  tyranny 
in  horror,  but  I  hold  foreign  intervention  in  greater  horror 
still.  Let  us  combat  bad  laws  with  all  our  strength,  but 
among  ourselves."^ 

The  minority  treaties  tend  to  transform  each  of  the 
states  on  which  it  is  imposed  into  a  miniature  Balkans,  to 
keep  Europe  in  continuous  turmoil  and  hinder  the  growth 
of  the  new  and  creative  ideas  from  which  alone  one  could 
expect  that  union  of  collective  energy  with  individual 
freedom  which  is  essential  to  peace  and  progress.  Mod- 
ern history  affords  no  more  strildng  example  of  the  force 
of  abstract  bias  over  the  teachings  of  experience  than 
this  amateur  legislation  which  is  scattering  seeds  of  mis- 
chief and  conflict  throughout  Europe. 

Casting  a  final  glance  at  the  results  of  the  Conference, 
it  would  be  ungracious  not  to  welcome  as  a  precious  boon 
the  destruction  of  Prussian  militarism,  a  consummation 
which  we  owe  to  the  heroism  of  the  armies  rather  than  to 
the  sagacity  of  the  lawgivers  in  Paris.  The  restoration 
of  a  Polish  state  and  the  creation  or  extension  of  the  other 
free  communities  at  the  expense  of  the  Central  Empires 
are  also  most  welcome  changes,  which,  however,  ought 
never  to  have  been  marred  by  the  disruptive  wedge  of  the 
minority  legislation.  Again,  although  the  League  is  a 
mill  whose  sails  uselessly  revolve,  because  it  has  no  corn 
to  grind,  the  mere  fact  that  the  necessity  of  international- 
ism was  solemnly  proclaimed  as  the  central  idea  of  the 
new  ordering,  and  that  an  effort,  however  feeble,  was  put 
forth  to  realize  it  in  the  shape  of  a  covenant  of  social  and 
moral  fellowship,  marks  an  advance  from  which  there  can 
be  no  retrogression. 

Actuality  was  thereby  imparted  to  the  idea,  which  is 
destined  to  remain  in  the  forefront  of  contemporary  poli- 

1  Le  Figaro,  August  21,  1919.     L'EcJio  de  Paris,  August  22,  1919. 

508 


THE  COVENANT  AND  MINORITIES 

tics  until  the  peoples  themselves  embody  it  in  viable 
institutions.  What  the  delegates  failed  to  realize  is  the 
truth  that  a  program  of  a  league  is  not  a  league. 

On  the  debit  side  much  might  be  added  to  what  has 
already  been  said.  The  important  fact  to  bear  in  mind — 
which  in  itself  calls  for  neither  praise  nor  blame — is  that 
the  world-parliament  was  at  bottom  an  Anglo-Saxon  as- 
sembly whose  language,  political  conceptions,  self-esteem, 
and  disregard  of  ever^'thing  foreign  were  essentially  Eng- 
lish. When  speaking,  the  faces  of  the  principal  delegates 
were  turned  toward  the  future,  and  when  acting  they 
looked  toward  the  past.  As  a  thoroughly  English  press 
organ,  when  alluding  to  the  League  of  Nations,  puts  it: 
"We  have  done  homage  to  that  entrancing  ideal  by 
spatchcocking  the  Convention  into  the  Treaty.  There  it 
remains  as  a  finger-post  to  point  the  way  to  a  new  heaven 
on  earth.  But  we  observe  that  the  Treaty  itself  is  a 
good  old  eighteenth-century  piece,  drawing  its  inspiration 
from  mundane  and  practical  considerations,  and  paying 
a  good  deal  more  than  lip  service  to  the  principle  of  the 
balance  of  power."  ^ 

That  is  a  fair  estimate  of  the  work  achieved  by  the 
delegates.  But  they  sinned  in  their  way  of  doing  it.  If 
they  had  deliberately  and  professedly  aimed  at  these 
results,  and  had  led  the  world  to  look  for  none  other,  most 
of  the  criticisms  to  which  they  have  rendered  themselv^es 
open  would  be  pointless.  But  they  raised  hopes  which 
they  refused  to  realize,  they  weakened  if  they  did  not  de- 
stroy faith  in  public  treaties,  they  intensified  distrust  and 
race  hatred  throughout  the  world,  they  poured  strong  dis- 
solvents upon  every  state  on  the  European  Continent, 
and  they  stirred  up  fierce  passions  in  Russia,  and  then  left 
that  ill-starred  nation  a  prey  to  unprecedented  anarchy. 
In  a  word,  they  gathered  up  all  the  widely  scattered  ex- 

1  The  Morning  Post,  July  21,  1919. 

509 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

plosives  of  imperialism,  nationalism,  and  internationalism, 
and,  having  added  to  their  destructiveness,  passed  them 
on  to  the  peoples  of  the  world  as  represented  by  the 
League  of  Nations.  Some  of  them  deplored  the  mess  in 
which  they  were  leaving  the  nations,  without,  however, 
admitting  the  causal  nexus  between  it  and  their  own 
achievements. 

General  Smuts,  before  quitting  Paris  for  South  Africa, 
frankly  admitted  that  the  Peace  Treaty  will  not  give  us 
the  real  peace  which  the  peoples  hoped  for,  and  that  peace- 
making would  not  begin  until  after  the  signing  of  the 
Treaty.  The  Echo  de  Paris  wrote:  "As  for  us,  we  never 
believed  in  the  Society  of  Nations."^  And  again:  "The 
Society  of  Nations  is  now  but  a  bladder,  and  nobody 
would  venture  to  describe  it  as  a  lantern."  -  The  Bol- 
shevist dictator  Lenin  termed  it  "an  organization  to  loot 
the  world."  =^ 

The  Allies  themselves  are  at  sixes  and  sevens.  The 
French  are  suspicious  of  the  British.  A  large  section  of 
the  American  people  is  profoundly  dissatisfied  with  the 
part  played  by  the  English  and  the  French  at  the  Con- 
ference; Italy  is  stung  to  the  quick  by  the  treatment 
she  received  from  France,  Britain,  and  the  United  States; 
Rumania  loathes  the  very  names  of  those  for  whom  she 
staked  her  all  and  sacrificed  so  much;  in  Poland  and 
Belgium  the  English  have  lost  the  consideration  which 
they  enjoyed  before  the  Conference;  the  Greeks  are 
wroth  with  the  American  delegates;  the  majority  of 
Russians  literally  execrate  their  ex-Allies  and  turn  to  the 
Germans  and  the  Japanese. 

"The  resettlement  of  central  Europe,"  writes  an 
American  journal,^  "is  not  being  made  for  the  tranquillity 


^  VEcho  de  Paris,  April  29,  191 9.  "^  Ibid.,  April  14,  191 9. 

'  The  Chicago  Tribune  (Paris  edition),  September  17,  1919. 
*  The  New  Republic,  August  6,  191 9. 

5'0 


THE  COVENANT  AND  MINORITIES 

of  the  liberated  principles,  but  for  the  purposes  of  the 
Great  Powers,  among  whom  France  is  the  active,  and 
America  and  Britain  the  passive,  partners.  In  Germany 
its  purpose  is  the  permanent  elimination  of  the  German 
nation  as  a  factor  in  European  politics.  .  .  .  We  cannot 
save  Europe  by  playing  the  sinister  game  now  being 
played.  There  is  no  peace,  no  order,  no  security  in  it. 
.  .  .  What  it  can  do  is  to  aggravate  the  mischief  and 
intensify  the  schisms." 

A  distinguished  American,  who  is  a  consistent  friend 
of  England,^  in  a  review  article  afhrmed  that  the  pro- 
posed League  of  Nations  is  slowly  undermining  the  Anglo- 
American  Entente.  "There  is  in  America  a  growing 
sense  of  irritation  that  she  should  be  forever  entangled 
in  the  spider-web  of  European  politics."  .  .  .  And  if  the 
Senate  in  the  supposed  interests  of  peace  should  ratify 
the  League,  he  adds,  "In  my  judgment  no  greater  harm 
could  result  to  Anglo-American  unity  than  such  reluctant 
consent."  - 

Some  of  Mr.  Wilson's  fellow-countrymen  who  gave 
him  their  whole-hearted  support  when  he  undertook  to 
establish  a  regime  of  right  and  justice  sum  up  the  result 
of  his  labors  in  Paris  as  follows :  ^ 

"His  solemn  warning  against  special  alliances  emerged 
as  a  special  alliance  with  Britain  and  France.  His  re- 
peated condemnations  of  secret  treaties  emerges  as  a 
recognition  that  'they  could  not  honorably  be  brushed 
aside,'  even  though  they  conflicted  with  equally  binding 
public  engagements  entered  into  after  they  had  been 
written.  Openly  arrived  at  covenants  were  not  openly 
arrived  at.  The  removal,  so  far  as  possible,  of  all  economic 
barriers  was  applied  to  German  barriers,   and  accom- 


'  Mr.  James  B.  Beck. 

"^  The  North  American  Review,  June,  1919. 

'  C£.  The  New  Republic,  August  6,  1919,  pp.  5,  6, 

5^1 


THE  INSIDE  STORY  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

panied  by  the  blockade  of  a  people  with  whom  we  have 
never  been  at  war.  The  adequate  guaranties  to  be  given 
and  taken  as  respects  armaments  were  taken  from  Ger- 
many and  given  to  no  one.  The  'unhampered  and  un- 
embarrassed opportunity  for  the  independent  determina- 
tion of  her  own  political  development'  promised  to  Rus- 
sia, and  defined  as  the  'acid  test,'  has  been  worked  out 
by  Mr.  Wilson  and  others  to  a  point  where  so  cautious 
a  man  as  Mr.  Asquith  says  he  regards  it  with  'bewilder- 
ment and  apprehension.'  The  righting  of  the  wrong  done 
in  1 87 1  emerges  as  a  concealed  annexation  of  the  boundary 
of  1 8 14.  The  'clearly  recognizable  lines  of  nationality' 
which  Italy  was  to  obtain  has  been  wheedled  into  an- 
nexations which  have  moved  Viscount  Bryce  to  denounce 
them.  'The  freest  opportunity  of  autonomous  develop- 
ment' promised  the  peoples  of  Austria-Hungar}^  failed 
to  define  the  Austrians  as  peoples.  ..." 

Whatever  the  tests  one  applies  to  the  work  of  the 
Conference — ethical,  social,  or  political — they  reveal  it 
as  a  factor  eminently  calculated  to  sap  high  interests,  to 
weaken  the  moral  nerve  of  the  present  generation,  to  fan 
the  flames  of  national  and  racial  hatred,  to  dig  an  abyss 
between  the  classes  and  the  masses,  and  to  throw  open  the 
sluice-gates  to  the  inrush  of  the  waves  of  anarchist  inter- 
nationalities.  Truth,  justice,  equity,  and  liberty  have 
been  twisted  and  pressed  into  the  service  of  economico- 
political  boards.  In  the  United  States  the  people  who 
prided  themselves  on  their  aloofness  are  already  fighting 
over  European  interests.  In  Europe  every  nation's  hand 
is  raised  against  its  neighbors,  and  every  people's  hand 
against  its  ruling  class.  Every  government  is  making 
its  policy  subservient  to  the  needs  of  the  future  war  which 
is  universally  looked  upon  as  an  unavoidable  outcome  of 
the  Versailles  peace.  Imperialism  and  militarism  are 
striking  roots  in  soil  where  they  were  hitherto  unknown. 

512 


%s. 


THE    COVENANT    AND    MINORITIES 

In  a  word,  Prussianism,  instead  of  being  destroyed,  has 
been  openly  adopted  by  its  ostensible  enemies,  and  the 
huge  sacrifices  offered  up  by  the  heroic  armies  of  the  fore- 
most nations  are  being  misused  to  give  one  half  of  the 
world  just  cause  to  rise  up  against  the  other  half. 


THE    END 


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